Scholarly nun believes faith and science coexist

By Katherine Nichols
Advertiser Staff Writer

Sister Edna DeManche, dressed in a white habit with a cross dangling from her neck, held up an award from the Hawai'i Academy of Science. She shook her finger and declared, "Notice it does not say that we're honoring Sister Edna because she can combine religion and science!"

Sister Edna DeManche says the belief that religion and science cannot coexist are harbored by people who are not well-educated in either. She says there is not — and never has been — any conflict between the two. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Sister DeManche's broad smile and sparkling eyes make her straight talk impossible to ignore. She lives upstairs with six other nuns in a Kaimuki convent. Her three careers, in "chop-suey order," she said, have been religion, science and education. Although she rarely opened her own textbooks as a child because "they were too boring," she has a bachelor's degree in zoology from the College of Mt. St. Vincent in New York and a doctorate in biology from Notre Dame University, which she earned in the 1960s when only men were allowed (an exception was made for academically qualified nuns).

Over the years, she has written numerous scientific articles and textbooks, taught science at various schools, including the University of Hawai'i Lab School, and developed the science curriculum for all 44 Roman Catholic schools in Hawai'i. She also has been a member of the Hawai'i Academy of Science since 1959.

Sister Demanche is unafraid to share her opinions. "She struts around here like a young teenager, really," said Sister Regina Jenkins, her provincial (also called the mother superior), who has known Sister DeManche for more than 25 years.

"She is very energetic for a person of her years," Sister Jenkins said. "She keeps current ... and has a broad vision of things. She's very outgoing ... and yet she has a deep contemplative life, a deep prayer life as well."

	Sister Edna DeManche
•	Age: 86
•	Occupation: Provincial secretary for Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, Pacific Province
•	Home town: Born in Marionville, Mo.; lived in Hawai'i since 1940
•	Education: Doctorate in biology (plant physiology) from the University of Notre Dame
•	Quote: "I think I'm still sort of a maverick. I'm not afraid to get into anything."

Sister DeManche was born in 1915 in Marionville, Mo., and raised in an unreligious family of engineers. As a child, she said, "I was a roughneck, little smart-aleck tomboy." She preferred playing with boys and tended to agitate most situations. "I was always in trouble. I was so unhappy."

After they moved to St. Louis, the 12-year-old overheard her grandfather share with the family a possible solution: "Why don't we put her in the Catholic school?" he said. "It's only a few blocks from here. The nuns will teach her to be a lady and the religion won't make a dent on her."

She laughed. "Well, they lost on both counts."

By age 13, she said, she was "totally into God and religion — but still a tomboy." Despite objections from her family, she entered the convent when she was 19. Her family eventually accepted her decision — one she has not doubted for the past 67 years. "When I fell in love with God, it was total," she said. "It never stopped."

Sister DeManche was assigned to Hawai'i in 1940 to teach science and English to grades 7-12 at Maryknoll. Later, she worked in curriculum research and development within the College of Education at the University of Hawai'i, and subsequently as the director of Hawai'i Nature Study Project that designed, field-tested and trained teachers in environmental education activities.

On this day in the convent, periodically leaping from the couch in the sitting area to answer the nearby office phone, Sister DeManche possessed the vitality of a 50-year-old. She still works full time ("24/7," she corrects, "because I live here") as provincial secretary for the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, Pacific Province.

If skepticism persists that a person can be both a pure scientist and follower of God, one need look no further than Sister DeManche.

"The basis of religion is faith and grace from God," she said. "It's love and our relationships with one another."

With her profound knowledge of the Bible, she cautions, "if you're going to read the Bible as a book of science, you're in trouble.

"The people who believe this creationism myth, which is unscientific and is not in the Bible, despite what they say, haven't really studied theology and don't know that the Bible is not a scientific work," she said.

"If you're going to talk of religion and say that God created the world, science buys that. It's not a problem," she continued. "If you're going to talk about evolution, then you're asking practical problems about nature, and the Bible has nothing to say about that."

It's essential to read the Bible as a symbolic rather than literal text, she said. This means that the seven days in which the world was created represent development over a long period of time — not necessarily days as we know them.

With the Bible, "you're talking about the essentials of belief. But belief has no place in science." In science, "we take what evidence there is and work with it."

While most people might see a dissonance between science and religion, "she saw no problems with that and was able to carry it to the highest levels," said Michael Garcia, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Hawai'i and the former president of the Hawai'i Academy of Science. "She is a truly remarkable lady, both for her passion for geology as well as her excitement in developing local examples to illustrate scientific principles."

Sister DeManche's love of science is complete. "I teach science because it has its own integrity," she said. "Then I go home and say my prayers and thank God for making such a wonderful world."

On her extensive curriculum vitae, Sister DeManche also lists a section called "handicaps." These include the fact that she is fluent only in English, can read music but not play any instruments, and is a "disaster in any of the fine arts."

But her skills are as bountiful as her energy and her ideas. And this woman has no plans to slow down. "I think I'm still sort of a maverick," she said with a sly smile. "I'm not afraid to get into anything."