MANCHESTER, NH – The White Mass was recently celebrated by the Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, D.D., Bishop of Manchester, at Saint Joseph Cathedral and attended by healthcare workers from various hospitals and practices. This annual Mass is dedicated to the intentions of healthcare professionals and affirms the service they give to the sick according to the model of Jesus Christ.
The New Hampshire Guild of Catholic Healthcare Professionals held a reception following the Mass and Bishop Libasci presented Kathy Rivet with the 2026 St. Martin de Porres Award. The Guild annually honors an individual who has exemplified the virtues of Catholic healthcare in his or her career as a healthcare professional with this award.
Rivet has served as a Creighton Model FertilityCare Practitioner and Educator in New Hampshire and Nebraska since 1973. She started two hospital-based natural family planning (NFP) programs, one in 1980 at Manchester’s Catholic Medical Center that is still in practice and another at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua that operated for 30 years. In 1999, Rivet began the Marguerite d’Youville FertilityCare Practitioner Education Program in New Hampshire under the St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing, which led to 20 years of educating FertilityCare Practitioners.
Throughout her career, Rivet worked in more than 200 education programs and supervised more than 800 practitioners and educators. She taught NFP education programs in Canada and Europe and virtually in the U.S., Australia, France, Lebanon and Nigeria.
“Mrs. Rivet’s lifetime dedication to women’s natural healthcare and the strengthening of Catholic marriages through NFP is remarkable,” said Deacon James Wilton, DPM and Chair of the NH Guild of Catholic Healthcare Professionals. “Her work has had a positive impact on generations of families—locally and throughout the world—and the Guild is grateful for her decades of personalized care and service.”
Rivet currently serves as a FertilityCare Educator. She and her husband of 58 years are parishioners of Sainte Marie Parish in Manchester.
For more information about the White Mass, visit www.catholicnh.org/whitemass.