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Margaret
Fennelly Grace, or Margie as her friends know her, is the
wife of the late J. Peter Grace.
Peter and Margie are the parents of nine children,
grandparents of 25 and great-grandparents of five. A
graduate of Cathedral High School, Manhattan, and Fordham
College, Bronx, Margie has done graduate studies at Fordham
University, Darlington Seminary, New Jersey, and Notre Dame
University, Indiana.
During the Second Vatican Council Margie worked in Rome with
a small group of friends of Leon Josef Cardinal Suenens of
Brussels, Belgium, a man who played a very important role as
one of the Four Moderators of the Council. This group
assisted the Cardinal by arranging meetings on such issues
as ecumenism, world poverty, marriage and religious
commitment.
Following the Council, Margie worked with the Cardinal in
planning his trips to the United States until his death in
1996 at 92 years of age.
The spirit of Cardinal Suenens' ideas continues to
this day through the Cardinal Suenens Center at John Carroll
University in Cleveland, which Margie founded in 1996.
Margie
Grace is a member of the Dames of the Order of Malta and the
Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre. She has received the Elizabeth
Ann Seton Medal from St. John’s University, New York, and
was honored in December 2002 by Catholic Charities of the
Archdiocese of New York and the Ladies of Charity.
Margie has been awarded honorary degrees from St.
Michaels College, Vermont; Trinity College, Washinton, D.C.,
and the University of Steubenville, Ohio.