Rose Elizabeth Thering was born in Plain, Wisconsin on 9 August 1920, the sixth of 11 children. She entered the Dominican sisterhood in 1937 and later became a teacher. She received a bachelor's degree from the Dominican College in Racine in 1953, a master's degree from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul in 1957 and a doctorate at St. Louis University in 1961. Her doctoral dissertation was on anti-Semitism in Catholic texts, and she was a lifelong activist dedicated to increasing tolerance and understanding between Christians and Jews. Her work was referenced in deliberations for the Nostra Aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, a document adopted at the Second Vatican Council that reversed the Roman Catholic Church's official position on relations with the Jewish religion and people, having a lasting affect on inter-faith relations.

Sister Rose Thering was a teacher at the Institute for Judeao-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University, continued to be an outspoken activist in favor of Judeao-Christian relations throughout her life, and received many awards for her work, including the Cardinal Bea Interfaith Award from the Anti-defamation League in 2004. She was instrumental in the creation of legislation in 1994 mandating that the Holocaust be taught in New Jersey schools. A documentary on her life, Sister Rose's Passion, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. The Rose Thering Endowment for Jewish-Christian Studies, a scholarship for graduate students of education, was established at Seton Hall in 1992. Sister Rose Thering died 6 May 2006 in her home convent, The Siena Center of the Racine Dominicans in Wisconsin.

Sources: The New York Times obituary from 2006; The website for the Sister Rose Thering Fund at Seton Hall University.