Sisters making mainstream headlines

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She’s known as the “fastest nun in the West.” But could “saint” be an Italian-born sister’s new title someday?

A saint for New Mexico?

Sr. Blandina Segale, a member of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, dedicated much of her life to helping the sick, the poor and immigrants in Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico. She founded schools and hospitals and was a fierce advocate for Native Americans and Hispanics.

She’s also known for going toe-to-toe with the likes of Billy the Kid.

Now the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has started the lengthy process to secure her sainthood.

Church officials say that it’s the first time in New Mexico’s 400-year history with the Roman Catholic Church that it has someone being considered for sainthood, reports London’s Daily Mail.

Segale was 91 when she died in 1941. Her legendary encounters with outlaws in the wild west lived on, some featured on an episode of the old CBS TV series, “Death Valley Days.”

One story goes that she heard Billy the Kid was heading to her town in Colorado to scalp four doctors who had refused to treat his friend’s gunshot wound. Segale nursed Billy’s friend back to health, and when the famous outlaw arrived in town, she talked him out of his violent plan.

Repurposing in Syracuse

Syracuse.com reported this week that federal officials are considering using vacant convents in that part of New York state to house immigrant children awaiting deportation.

Government officials this week inspected six buildings, including two former convents, on the 10-acre campus of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.

Rochelle Casella, spokeswoman for the order, said the sisters have not decided whether to accept any offer to either lease or sell the properties to the government. “The sisters say there are a lot of factors to be taken into consideration," Cassella said.

A former Catholic convent and retirement home in Albany, N.Y., are reportedly also being considered.

Landmark convent to close

There’s no missing the 200-year-old Notre-Dame-du-Vieux-Moulin convent, a postcard-beautiful hulk of a building that sits at the tip of “La Pointe” in Pointe-Claire, a suburb of Montreal, Canada.

But the landmark’s future is up in the air. Church officials say the building has become too expensive to maintain, so the 19 Congregation Notre-Dame sisters who live there will be leaving by December, reports the Montreal Gazette.

“I believe heating alone is somewhere in the vicinity of $80,000 a year,” Point-Claire mayor Morris Trudeau told CTV News.

The land that houses the convent, the city’s signature windmill built in 1709 and St. Joachim Church are owned by that church.

Local residents are afraid the waterfront property will lose its historical importance if it’s sold and redeveloped into condos.

City officials have promised to make sure the heritage status of the convent will be preserved if the land is ever sold. Local historic preservation authorities want the city to buy the land and keep it accessible to the public.

“Part of the building could be a museum explaining the long and esteemed teaching history of the nuns of Notre-Dame,” Pointe-Claire Heritage Society president Claude Arsenault told the Gazette.

Best feet forward

One hundred years have come and gone for Sacred Heart School in Swaffham, England, and former pupils recently returned from as far away from Canada and Israel to celebrate the milestone.

And how did they mark this auspicious occasion? With a fashion show, balloon launch – and a foot race by nuns, according to The Lynn News in Norfolk, England, which ran a photo of sisters in habits running across a lawn with balloons in their hands.

“We had a fantastic weekend and everybody worked so hard, the staff and the pupils,” said head teacher Sr. Francis Ridler. “Everybody joined in and everybody enjoyed themselves. It was a real celebration.”

The school was founded in 1914 by the Daughters of Divine Charity who moved to England from Austria.

‘Monk’ flunks his nun test

Over the Fourth of July weekend NPR replayed a 2010 conversation with Tony Shalhoub, who played an obsessive-compulsive detective on the TV series, “Monk.”
Playing off the “monk” name, part of the interview included three questions about nuns.

“OK, that makes no sense,” Shalhoub told NPR’s Peter Sagal, host of “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!”

“That’s how we do,” said Sagal.

Question one: “Some nuns in Italy got in trouble with the law last year. What did they do? A – they got pulled over going 112 miles per hour in a Ford Fiesta, in a hurry to go see the pope?

“B – they made so much noise at a late night coffee klatch, the police were called by neighbors? Or C – they were busted for growing hallucinogen mushrooms?”

Shalhoub noted that he went to a Catholic school when he was a kid “and knowing the nuns, I'm going to have to go with C, hallucinogenic.”

Wrong. They were speeding and the nun behind the wheel lost her license.

Jumping to the chase with question three: The sisters of the St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist convent in Independence, Mo., helped out their community in an expected way last year. What did they do? A – they raised money for a community center by selling a Ladies of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist Convent calendar?

“B – wearing habits and flip-flops, they chased down a robbery suspect, leading to his arrest? Or C – they provided the hit Dunk-a-Nun booth at the Independence County Fair?”

The Missouri sisters chased down a robber.

No joke.

[Lisa Gutierrez is a reporter in Kansas City, Mo., who scans the non-NCR news every week for interesting pieces about sisters. She can be reached at lisa11gutierrez@gmail.com.]

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