Meet Sister Monica Socinski, OP
Sister Monica Socinski,OP is a Dominican Sister of Hope. She was born and educated in Vermont. Sister Monica has four brothers, all of whom live in Vermont, and one sister, Dr. Monica Gregory, who is the Academic Director at Penn State University, Hazleton, and lives in Conyngham, Pennsylvania.

A graduate of Mt. St. Joseph Academy in Rutland, Vermont, and Trinity College of Vermont, Sister Monica continued her studies at Middlebury College where she received a Master of Arts degree in French Studies. Further studies were pursued at Fairfield University in Religious studies with an emphasis on Scripture and Liturgy. Her Internship at Fairfield University included starting and developing a Cathedral Choir and training leaders of song and cantors for the cathedral. Sister Monica studied in Florence, Italy, when she received a scholarship from Cardinal Spellman. The Cardinal was impressed with her choir work in Poughkeepsie, New York, and sent her on to Italy for further study of music. She studied voice in Florence and gave a concert at the end of the term when she sang art songs, folk songs, and opera arias in French, German, Italian, and Polish.

Sister Monica served as Cantor at the Bridgeport Cathedral of St. Augustine; as Choir Director at Assumption parish in Emerson, New Jersey; as a department Chairperson at Our Lady of Lourdes High School in Poughkeepsie, New York; and as Theology Chair at St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in West NY, New Jersey.

As a Dominican Sister, Sister Monica was chosen to be part of an International Team of Dominican Sisters who assisted the French Dominicans in Fanjeaux, France, to give tours of St. Dominic’s House (La Maison de St. Dominique) in French and to help out at the Belvedere Hostel cooking French cuisine for guests and pilgrims to St. Dominic’s country. This was a wonderful opportunity to practice both language and culinary arts!

At present, Sister Monica is teaching French and Theology at St. Joseph Regional High School, Montvale, New Jersey. Her outside interests include going to the opera, Broadway, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as experimenting in French cooking.