Sister Mary Clare Hughes, D.C., Baltimore native who ministered in hospitals, dies at 97

A funeral Mass for Daughter of Charity Sister Mary Clare (Anne Clare) Hughes was offered June 30 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg. Sister Mary Clare died June 25. She was 97.

Born in Baltimore, Sister Mary Clare graduated from Seton High School in 1942. On Dec. 14, 1942, she entered the Daughters of Charity from her parish, St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Highlandtown. 

In the Archdiocese of Baltimore, from 1962 to 1983, Sister Mary Clare served in leadership for her religious community’s Emmitsburg Province, as Provincial Councillor and Assistant (1962-1974) and as Visitatrix from 1974 to 1983. She then was missioned to Sacred Heart Hospital in Cumberland and served as pastoral care coordinator for one year.

Sister Mary Clare also ministered in pastoral care at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore (1998-2001), and as administrator of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg (2001-2005). 

Elsewhere, Sister Mary Clare ministered in West Virginia, Florida, Michigan and the Archdiocese of Washington. She was the president and chief executive officer of St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., from 1986 to 1993.

Sister Mary Clare held a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in nursing administration and public health from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

“The religious life is (about) becoming a dear, dear friend of Jesus,” Sister Mary Clare told the Catholic Review in a 2022 interview.

She said one of fondest memories was visiting the Vatican for the canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint.

“I’m going up to (St.) Pope Paul VI and all I can think about is all he has done for the church, he fought so hard against abortion,” she noted. “When I got there, I looked at him and I forgot everything I was going to say.”

It was one of the most “humorous occasions” of her life, she said. He then walked over with Sister Mary Clare to a table displaying the American flag, bent down, patted the stripes and put his hand on the stars.

“He understood what drives the American people,” she noted. “He showed his affection for us that very day in the way he treated us.”

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