Sister Barbara Cline wanted to be a missionary, and when she learned that the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration had a mission in China, she knew that was the order in which she wanted to live her vocation to religious life.

But before she could get to the point of being missioned to China, that mission was closed because the sisters had been killed, tortured or expelled.

It was years before she undertook her first mission assignment — in the Middle East.

In the meantime, she taught, something she also wanted to do.

Most of her educational ministry was with persons — mostly children — with disabilities both in the United States and abroad. She liked how responsive they were to being taught to walk, play and feed themselves. “They were so responsive to me,” she recalled during an interview at the Catholic Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington where she lives. “When I’d show them something they’d want to do it, like throw a ball. One thing about that is they began to throw more than they should have,” she added with a smile.

With a reputation for never complaining, Sister Cline, 82, — who grew up in Spencer, Iowa —entered religious life as a postulant in 1959. After Vatican II, she was among 55 members who formed the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, the order to which she now belongs.

Her love for persons with disabilities grew, and she earned a master’s degree from Michigan State University in 1974 in developmental psychology with an infant/toddler specialization and a doctorate from that university in 1977 in special education administration and developmental psychology.

Through the years she has also taught at the University of New Hampshire, Bethlehem University, Arab College of Nursing in Ramallah, The Nutrition Institute in Cairo and at Michigan State and Grand Valley State universities.

Among the awards she has received is The Salma Friberg Award for outstanding achievement in working with the mental health issues of families with young children presented by the Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health and the Faith in Action Award presented by Guardian Angel Homes.

Sister Cline’s first experience working with children with disabilities began in 1968 at Misericordia Home in Chicago and later included work in the Middle East and West Africa.

She laments that some people see persons who are not physically “perfect” as somehow less important. But those with special needs “were created by God as all of us were,” she said. “Every one of us is created in such a way in Christ to become a saint and be in heaven.”

An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at St. Mark Church in Burlington and director of religious education at Holy Cross Church in Colchester, Sister Cline is far removed from the war and unrest in areas where she once ministered to children with disabilities, places like Cameroon, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Gaza.

When she worked with traumatized children as director of the Near East Regional Office for Catholic Relief Services serving the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon, Israel bombed the airport in Beirut so she was not able to get into the country. And “in the West Bank, there was always violence of some kind,” she said. “It was everyday life.”

Working in the West Bank and Gaza, she had to get permission from an Israeli military officer for many of the things she needed to do, but she was grateful to have had a good rapport with the officer who called her “Baba” instead of Barbara.

She witnessed many horrors during those times, especially results of bombings, human suffering and violence. “If a child threw a stone at an Israeli military officer, they would destroy the child’s house. I found that really difficult,” she said.

Sister Cline always has worn her long brown habit and short black veil as she ministered in various places in the world, and in the Middle East, she was considered a “woman of the cloth,”
she said. “So I was respected.”

There was tension in what she was doing, but she accepted it. “I knew the people I was working with had more tension than I could ever think of,” she said. “I had to be upbeat for them.”

During those times, she found peace living in community with three other sisters, talking and praying together and attending daily Mass in the church on their compound. Still, prayer helps her find peace.

When war broke out in Gaze last year, Sister Cline was heartsick. “I knew those towns and people that lived there,” she said, and as television news showed more and more destruction, she had to limit her consumption of that coverage and follow it online instead.

“I understand their anger [Israel’s], but the civilians of Gaza are not a warring people. They’re a gentle people,” she said. “The war needs to stop.”

She prays it will.

For more information about the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, go to fsecommunity.org.

—Originally published in the Spring 2024 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.