Mrs. Joanne McOsker, R.I.P. (April 15, 1930, to July 15, 2026)
We have just received word that our dear friend, Mrs. Joanne McOsker, who spent her entire life in the service of the Catholic Faith and a devoted daughter of Our Lady as part of the Legion Mary, died overnight at the age of ninety-six years, three months (to the day).
Joanne worked tirelessly in behalf the preborn, taking the initiative to open up homes for unwed mothers, starting the Mother of Life Center to provide expectant mothers with supernatural and natural advice, and lobbied Rhode Islan mayors, governors, legislators, Congressional representatives and senators, and the general public to promote the defense of the inviolability of innocent human life. She worked closely with the late Miss Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund and had speakers of her own choosing speak before her Catholics for Life group every year several hours before the March for Life took place. One of the regular speakers before that group was the still hard-working “spring chicken” (at ninety-three now) Dr. Paul A. Byrne, who counted her as a valued associate and always told me that she was an extraordinary example of heroic Catholic Action. (She was even arrested during Operation Rescue several times. When she was being "carted away in the paddy wagon," she told us, an elderly priest who worked with Joanne said, "Ah, Joanne!" She touched many thousands upon thousands of lives, including the lives of the unborn children she saved, some of whom later wrote to her to thank her for helping them to live.)
Joanne was the leader of many Catholic women in Rhode Island who joined her in her efforts over the years, and she was known and loved by all who met her.
I first met Joanne and her late husband, Judge Robert McOsker (see So Rare to Find a Champion of Christ the King) at the Catholic Rendezvous in Salisbury, Connecticut, in November of 1986, and thus began a friendship that would last for three decades. Joanne organized numerous talks for me to give in Rhode Island over the years and ran my own “Living in the Shadow of the Cross” lecture series on public access television station several times. Joanne also had a regular cooking show on public access television for many decades, and she shared her culinary expertise with all those who came to visit her in her home in Rhode Island and with the Catholics of the various chapels she attended over the years. She labored hard at cooking to give bodily sustenance to others while also inspiring them to follow her in selfless dedication to sustain the life of Sanctifying Grace in their immortal souls.
Always interested in following the truth, Joanne and several of her friends met with the late Bishop Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., in October of 2007 and became convinced about the true state of Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. She encountered opposition from many quarters but persevered in the truth until she died in her condominium just a few miles from Father Robert Letourneau’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel Chapel in New Hampshire, where she had lived since November of 2019.
Words cannot begin to express our own gratitude to the late Mrs. Joanne Solano McOsker for her friendship and generosity over the years, including promoting Christ or Chaos and my books. She was generous to so many thousands of people and to many fully traditional Catholic priests and consecrated religious, and she spent much time reading spiritual books, including Blessed Claude de la Colombiere’s Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence in the final years of her life.
Joanne McOsker was indefatigable. No matter what kind of setback occurred with this or that plans of hers, she always said, “We go forward!”
Indeed, Joanne McOsker always went “forward” because she was totally consecrated to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Most Blessed Mother’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. She was fearless in her spread of Our Lady’s Miraculous Medal of Grace to complete strangers, encouraging everyone she met to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary.
Well, Mrs. Joanne McOsker has gone “forward” into eternity now and while we never presume the just Judgment of Christ the King upon anyone, I know that if there was anyone who deserved to hear Our Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” it was Joanne McOsker, model Catholic wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother to her own family as well as a Catholic mother and grandmother to everyone she met. She was truly the epitome of the Charity and Mercy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus who suffered all willingly through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We love you, Joanne! Thank you for all that you did for the cause of the Faith and innocent life here on earth and we know that your work in eternity has just begun!
Please remember the immortal soul of Mrs. Joanne McOsker in your prayers and, in your charity, please have Masses said for the repose of her immortal soul by a true priest.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen!
