Sister Marcelline Yurkovic

Current Ministry Location-Center, NY

Marcelline Yurkovic was born June 17, 1934 in Pottsville, PA, to Margaret (Shigo) Yurkovic and Frank S. Yurkovic, the second oldest of a family of ten children. She had 4 sisters: Dolores, Rosemary, Regina & Margaret and 4 brothers: Francis, John, Leonard & Michael. Marcelline graduated from St. Mary’s High School, Coaldale, PA in 1952.

Marcelline (Marcie) entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation September 2, 1952 at the Venard novitiate in Clark’s Summit, PA in 1952.  She professed First Vows March 7, 1955 at the Center in NY and Final Vows March 7, 1961 also at the Center. Her first mission assignment from 1955 to 1957 was to give Congregational Service in the Laundry, Promotion Office of the Sisters’ Development Department and study. In 1961, Sister Marcelline earned a Bachelor of Education degree from Maryknoll Teachers College, Maryknoll, NY.

Sister Marcelline received her first overseas mission assignment to the Bolivia/Peru Region. She began her mission journey as a primary school teacher and principal of San Jose School in the jungles of Bolivia in Riberalta, Beni. After six years she served in various capacities in Cochabamba such as principal of Santa Ana Parroquial (known locally as Maryknoll Grade School). After turning over the school to a lay Bolivian principal, Sister moved to La Paz, Bolivia where she became a member of the Diocesan pastoral team for the formation of Christian Communities and co-secretary for the National Pastoral program of the Bolivian Bishops Conference.

Returning to Cochabamba in 1979, Sister Marcelline founded the Cochabamba Archdiocesan Family Life Center.

In 1982 she returned to the U.S. to serve as part of a team at the Maryknoll Sisters Mission Institute at the Center in N.Y. Before returning to Bolivia, Sister earned a Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola College, Baltimore, MD.

Back in Bolivia in 1985, responding to a request of the Bolivian Bishops Conference, she organized the National Family Pastoral in La Paz, which then extended to eighteen dioceses in the country. Sister Marcelline has visited and continued her indefatigable work in family pastoral in just about every corner of Bolivia, from the heights of the Altiplano to the lowlands of the Oriente region as well as to many other South American countries on this same mission.

In 2013, Sister Marceline was assigned as part of a coordinating leadership team at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Ossining, NY. And, she moved to the Maryknoll Sisters retirement Convent in Monrovia, CA. She returned to the Center in NY to retire in 2016.