Sister Margaret McCabe, mental health advocate, dies at 80

A funeral Mass will be offered April 17 for Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Margaret “Peggy” McCabe. Sister Peggy died April 7. She was 80. 

The Philadelphia native was a veteran mental health advocate to the homeless who served the latter part of her career in Stevenson and Baltimore.

Sister Peggy served the Notre Dame de Namur community as administrator of the Villa Julie Residence, a retirement and care facility in Stevenson. She completed a year-long clinical pastoral education program in 2004 at age 61 and spent the next five years as a hospital chaplain and family liaison in the Baltimore area. Retiring in 2009, she began volunteering in the SNDdeN development office and joined Villa Julie as a resident before transferring to Mount Notre Dame Health Center in Cincinnati.

Early in her ministry, she taught at parishes in Illchester and Washington, D.C.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, she was educated in Catholic parish schools and at West Catholic High School in Philadelphia. It was there she became acquainted with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, choosing to profess the vows of the order after high school. 

McCabe earned a bachelor’s degree in education (1979) and a master’s degree in teaching and counseling (1980), both from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. 

Called to minister directly with those experiencing homelessness, particularly the mentally ill, Sister Peggy earned a second master’s degree in social work with a specialization in mental health from The Catholic University of America in Washington in 1987. She was then hired as a crisis social worker. At 48, she began serving an eight-year term as the crisis program director for Crossing Place, under the umbrella of the Potomac Residence Club in D.C. 

The funeral Mass for Sister Peggy will be held in the chapel at the SNDdeN Province facility in Cincinnati. 

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