Journeying Toward Justice

Sister Lois Aceto's missionary adventure began when as a girl she read about the lives of the Catholic Saints and was especially moved by the ones who were martyred. Lois became passionate about also dedicating, even sacrificing her life in the service of her Faith, and in her mind that meant becoming a missionary. Driven by her dream, in 1948 she became a Racine Dominican Sister, and served some years as an educator, before, in 1964 she volunteered and at the age of 33 was accepted as a missionary to South America. In 1971, wanting to be more closely accepted by the poor people she was serving, Lois felt the need to leave the Dominican Community and continue serving as a lay person. By 1972 she'd finally recovered from hepatitis. In 1973 she accepted a contract to put on a series of creativity workshops for Bolivian teachers. 1974 found Lois supervising the first coed college dorm in Bolivia, but in the fall of 1974 she accepted an offer to attend a medical school for missionaries in Spain. After graduating from medical school Lois went to study leprosy at a Spanish hospital. When the six-week course was over in early 1977 she returned to La Paz, Bolivia. There, working as a phychologist, Lois felt moved to take on 25 homeless boys and eventually provide them with a much more nurturing living environment, establishing the New Hope Orphanage. In 1981, she began teaching the blind, then, returned to Racine to rejoin the Dominican Order. It was in this modern city setting that Lois took on her next passionate mission, to bring Restorative Justice to the local criminal justice system. That led to VISION HOUSE, a program to prevent recitivism, and while teaching at the University of Wisconsin - Parkside, Lois continued the fight by establishing in 2005 the Institute of Restorative Justice. In 2022 she turned 91 and has continued Journeying Toward Justice by teaching in the prison classes on Conflict Resolution & Restorative Justice at the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility.