Sr. Helene Lentz, CSJ, died of cancer Dec. 22 at age 64. She had played a leadership role in the merger that formed Via Christi Health of Wichita, Kan., and she had headed the congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita.
Born in Wichita in 1947 as Karen May Lentz, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1963 and took the name Helene. She taught at elementary schools in California and Kansas until 1975, when she took on a novice training role with the Sisters of St. Joseph congregation.
In 1990, Sr. Lentz was named vice president of mission development at the former St. Joseph Medical Center of Wichita, which was sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph. She helped lead the merger process when that congregation and the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother combined their health care ministries in 1995 to form Via Christi Health.
The Sisters of St. Joseph elected Sr. Lentz their president in 2000, a position she held until 2007, when that congregation joined with six other congregations to form the Congregation of St. Joseph. Since 2007, she has directed the Wichita sisters' retreat facility, the Magnificat Center. She helped to found that center's Spiritual Strengths Cancer Care Program for cancer patients and their loved ones. The course was inaugurated in August; two weeks later, Sr. Lentz was herself diagnosed with cancer.
Among the ministries developed under her leadership were senior housing options, an adoption program, community outreach programs, a residence for battered women and their children and services for victims of sexual assault.
At the time of her death, Sr. Lentz was a member of the Sponsors' Council for St. Louis-based Ascension Health. The council oversees and appoints the members of the system's board of trustees.
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