TOUGH NUNS: “Sister Blandina Segale confronted Billy the Kid – on more than one occasion. In Cripple Creek, Colorado, Mother Mary Baptist Meyers oversaw the care and recovery of an anti-Catholic thug who had tried to blow up her hospital, only to have his own leg blown off.

“A statue of Mother Joseph, a Sister of Providence, stands in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol building. Mother Joseph founded countless hospitals and schools in the Northwest, and often played a role in their literal construction: she was the daughter of a coach maker and she ‘prowled construction sites with a saw in her hand and a hammer dangling from her belt.’ In Kokomo, Indiana, the Ku Klux Klan established a hospital to compete with that run by the Sisters of St. Joseph. One night, a dirty, ill man appeared in the Sisters’ emergency room. It turned out that he was a major benefactor of the Klan, and he was so taken with the Sisters’ care that he struck the Klan out of his will and gave the Sisters the resources to buy up the Klan hospital. Catholic nuns were instrumental in the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Mayo Clinic. They were pioneers in the education of minorities. They set standards for health care and education that moved public officials to invite them to set up shop in their communities. Catholic nuns worked out the first sewer system in Joplin, Missouri. Yes, they did.

“Of course, one cannot hear all of this without being moved to ask: What happened?” more…