Mumbai, India, native Virginia Saldanha, 63, had completed one year of university and four years as a corporate secretary when she got married at age 22. By the time she turned 28, she had three children and had become a widow. (Denis Coday, National Catholic Reporter.

“The experience of being a widow was life-changing for me in every way,” Saldanha told NCR in a recent interview. The experience would lead her first to a bachelor’s degree in economics, then to study Catholic catechetics and then theology.

She began working as a volunteer Sunday school teacher and then as a religious studies teacher in the parish school.

Appointed to serve on the Bombay archdiocese’s justice and peace commission, she would eventually head up the Women’s Desk, part of the Office of Laity for the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, and a similar post for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

After a dozen years with the Asian bishops, Saldanha left her post in 2009, but continues her work for women and empowerment for all people.

FULL STORY

Voice for women (National Catholic Reporter)