Sister Janice Cebula, OSF, president of the Sisters of St. Francis in Clinton, has been chosen to receive the 2012 Religious Woman of Achievement Award by the YWCA of Clinton. She is among six women being honored this year as Women of Achievement. The recipients will be honored April 19 during a banquet at Rastrelli’s Restaurant in Clinton.
Sr. Cebula has served as president of the Sisters of St. Francis since 2004. During her tenure as president, she led the congregation to adopt corporate stands on nuclear abolition and immigration reform. She currently chairs the Board of Directors for the Alverno and serves on the Intercongregational Peace and Justice Leadership Committee in northeast Iowa.
Prior to being elected president, Sr. Cebula was a staff attorney with Legal Aid of Western Missouri from 1981-2004, serving low-income clients in Kansas City. She was also active with Holy Family Catholic Worker House in Kansas City, which feeds and shelters those in need and works to eliminate the causes of poverty and violence.
She has been active in promoting peace and nonviolent alternatives to conflict for over 40 years. In the 1990s she authored a training program in Active Nonviolence and Peacemaking that has empowered many people in the way of peace-filled attitudes and actions. Sr. Cebula served as the original coordinator of the Clinton Franciscan Center for Active Nonviolence and Peacemaking.
Sr. Cebua is licensed to practice law in Missouri and Iowa. She holds graduate certification in Conflict Transformation through the Summer Peace Building Institute at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia.
She is an active member of Jesus Christ Prince of Peace Parish Pax Christi.
