An Irish nun who has worked tirelessly to educate youngsters in Pakistan has been honoured in Britain.

At the St Mary’s University graduation ceremony at West-minster Cathedral on July 17, Cardinal Vincent Nichols presented the Benedict Medal, the university’s highest honour, to Sister Berchmans Conway in recognition of a lifetime’s teaching and promoting interfaith relations. The cardinal is the arch-bishop of Westminster and chancellor of St Mary’s.

Born in Ireland in 1930, Sister Berchmans joined the Convent of Jesus and Mary in 1951 in Willesden, London, and has spent over 65 years teaching, mostly in Pakistan, where she has taught students of different faiths at the Convents of Jesus and Mary in Lahore, Murree and Karachi.

Among her pupils were Benazir Bhutto, the first female Muslim Prime Minister in the world, and astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala. Calling Sister Berchmans “a constant inspiration to many generations of teachers and students,” Cardinal Nichols said in his homily that she “is a shining example of all that is to be found at the heart of Catholic education: not a narrow self-interest but a radical openness to our human family.”