Wild West nun moves closer to sainthood
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An Italian-born nun who challenged Billy the Kid, calmed angry mobs and helped open hospitals and schools in New Mexico territory took a step toward possible sainthood with documents about her purported good deeds being sent to Rome.
In a public Albuquerque ceremony, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe formally closed its inquiry on why Sister Blandina Segale should become a saint and sealed its findings.
Church investigators presented piles of documents they say corroborate the stories about the nun’s legendary clashes with outlaws and her heroic actions to protect Hispanics and American Indians.
They also sealed documents about miracles attributed to Segale, who died in 1941.
It’s the first time in New Mexico’s 400-year history with the Roman Catholic Church that an inquiry was completed in the state on the cause of beatification and canonization.
Investigators were able to uncover letters from New Mexico governors and a former archbishop urging the nun to write a book about her experiences, said Allen Sanchez, president and CEO of CHI St. Joseph’s Children — a community health organization — and the petitioner for the cause of Segale’s sainthood.
The requests came after Segale had published stories about her experiences in some magazines by 1930.
“The archbishop said the old-timers remember her to be truthful and that all the accounts in her journal were true,” Sanchez said.
Segale, a nun with the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, came to Trinidad, Colo., in 1877 to teach poor children and was later transferred to Santa Fe, where she co-founded public and Catholic schools.
During her time in New Mexico, she worked with poor and sick people, including immigrants. She also advocated on behalf of Hispanics and Indians who were losing their land to white swindlers.
Segale worked as an educator and social worker in Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico and later published a memoir, “At the End of the Santa Fe Trail,” about her life.
