The Dominican nun, who was a leader in the field of socially responsible investing, passed away in December.
Her cousin said that she had bile duct cancer.
Sister Pat was the leader of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, a group of religious orders that used the ownership of shares by their pension funds as an entree to challenge corporate executives to act more responsible.
She told The Chicago Tribune that she didn't use the God card. I don't say I'm speaking for Jesus. If people see the Dominicans and Jesuits on a shareholder resolution, they will think they are credible.
She proposed a resolution to the annual meeting of General Electric that called on the company to warn people about the dangers of eating fish from the Hudson River, which had been polluted with PCBs. A full-page ad in The New York Times with a picture of a G.E. plant was paid for by the coalition.
She compared G.E.'s claim that PCBs were harmless to the tobacco industry's claim that smoking did not harm health.
Jack Welch, G.E.'s chairman and chief executive, yelled at Sister Pat.
She said that the comparison was valid.
He told Sister Pat that there was no correlation between PCB levels and cancer.
She said she was on the side of truth.
Her resolutions don't pass often. At the meeting, 7.6 percent of the G.E. shares voted in favor of her proposal.
She used her efforts to push companies to take action on climate change, worker and human rights, genetically modified food, and waste disposal. The Hudson was dredged by G.E. under Jeffrey R. Immelt.
Sister Pat worked on many other things, including shareholder resolutions.
Sister Pat made a passionate case for companies to do the right thing when she was at the table with management.
She helped convince William Clay Ford Jr., the executive chairman of Ford Motor, to leave the Global Climate Coalition, a group of big manufacturers and oil and mining companies that lobby against restrictions on emissions of gases linked to global warming. General GM and Daimler Chrysler were the first to follow.
Mr. Ford said that Sister Pat had helped inform Ford's leadership about the idea that businesses could do more to disclose their emissions and align their policies with their actions.
Sister Pat encouraged the Southern Company to move faster toward a future of net-zero carbon power generation at its energy plants.
Tom said that Sister Pat had proposed a resolution at the annual meeting that was the first time he had met her. He said that she made her case for climate justice in a quiet and constructive way.
He said that she didn't come in throwing thunderbolts. She came from a place of love.
She was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Queens. Her mother taught at a school. Her father worked at a company that imported and exported goods.
She is survived by her siblings and her brother.
Sister Pat received her bachelor's degree in religious studies from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut in 1976, the year she joined the Dominican order.
The film "Norma Rae" dramatized the fight to unionize at the J.P. Stevens company, and her order had had Stevens.
She went to the company's annual meeting and found a group of like-minded faith-based shareholders. She had heard her call.
She said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine that there was a whole network here. They said, 'OK, good, that's your job,'
It was not a full time job. She taught religion, social justice and morality at two Roman Catholic high schools in New Jersey from 1977 to 1981 before becoming an associate campus minister at St. Peter's College in Jersey City. She became the executive director of the Tri-State Coalition in 1994. She served on the board of the center.
Sister Pat and other environmentalists had urged ExxonMobil to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She proposed a resolution that called on the energy giant to report on its progress on time.
"We're the most profitable company in the history of the planet, but what will be our long-term health when we are?" she asked the CEO at the company's annual meeting.
She said that the company and everyone in it were challenged by one of the most profound moral concerns. We have the ability to deal with that.
The proposal won 31 percent of the votes, making it the largest ExxonMobil climate- change resolution. It was a page in a decades long narrative that led ExxonMobil to put a climate scientist on its board. Engine No. 1 nominated three executives who recognized the importance of addressing climate change to join the company's board.
John Passacantando, the founder of Ozone Action, an anti-global warming group, said in a phone interview that the victories were the result of her work.
She was named to the Hall of Fame by Vanity Fair in 1999.
When Sister Pat's resolutions were voted down, she didn't become frustrated, according to Mary Beth.
She was living in hope. We didn't talk about winning or losing. It was to raise consciousness and educate. Who will ask these questions if we don't?
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