PBS Documentary on Nuns Shows Monday at Stockton

Dr. Carol Rittner, who is a nun and Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey’s School of General Studies, is executive producer of a documentary, “Sisters,” set to air on PBS stations later this year. 

The one-hour documentary takes the audience into the lives of five American nuns, exploring the deepest hopes and yearnings of the human spirit, the risks and rewards of having a generous heart.

The film will be shown in the Stockton Campus Center Theatre on Monday, Oct. 21 from 6 to 7:30 p.m., with a discussion following the screening with Dr. Rittner and Dr. Deirdre Mullan, both members of the Sisters of Mercy. Dr. Mullan appears in the film. 

The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Rittner and Dr. Mullan both live in Longport and both also serve on the Board of Trustees for Georgian Court University in Lakewood, Ocean County. 

"American nuns -- Sisters -- are, in my view, the most well educated, competent, committed and savvy members of the Catholic Church in the United States and beyond,” said Dr. Rittner.

“They built the Catholic school system in the USA, educating millions of men and women, established the Catholic hospitals in this country, and served the underserved and marginalized in this country long before the present pope, Francis I -- and I like him very much - thought about reminding the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that this is where we should be serving all God's people,” Rittner continued.

“There may be fewer nuns today, but we are just as energetic and committed as we ever were."

"Sisters” cost about $400,000 — and it took Dr. Rittner three years to raise the funds. The film was directed and produced by three-time Emmy winner and Academy Award nominee Robert Gardner, of Robert Gardner Films, Baltimore.

"My colleagues at Stockton College have been wonderfully supportive of my efforts to raise the money -- a little more than $400,000 -- to make the film, and they have been personally encouraging of me in trying to tell the story of women who have committed their lives to serving the poor, sick, uneducated and undereducated in this world," said Dr. Rittner.

Dr. Rittner was executive producer of The Courage to Care, a 1986 Academy Award-nominated documentary film about non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, and Triumph of Memory (1987), a documentary film about non-Jews who survived Nazi concentration camps during WW II and the Holocaust.

Dr. Rittner is also the Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust Studies and author or editor of 16 books and numerous essays in various scholarly and educational journals about the Holocaust and other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her most recent book is: Rape as a Weapon of War & Genocide, published in 2012.

— News release from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey