Ministry on the Mississippi
By Susan Hines-Brigg
Saint Anthony Messenger, Monday, July, 2004

It’s a perfect autumn day, and Sister Joy Manthey, C.S.J., is greeting passengers coming aboard the Colonel riverboat for a cruise during Tall Stacks, a four-day festival held in Cincinnati, Ohio, about every four years since 1988. This is the fifth festival, but only Sister Joy’s third Tall Stacks visit.

“How you doing? Ready for a boat ride? Where’s your group from?” she asks as the passengers file past.

In between greetings, she stops to sign autographs and pose for pictures. She’s been written up in the local paper and featured on the local news. After appearing at Tall Stacks in 1999, Sister Joy has become somewhat of a local celebrity. Why? Well, it’s not every day that the captain of your riverboat is also a nun and a chaplain to a congregation that stretches from Pittsburgh to Houston.

As we cruised on the Ohio River, Sister Joy talked with St. Anthony Messenger about her lifelong connection with the river and how it led to her current ministry.

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