Paul KeenanFamed sister faced down Billy the Kid
A Catholic nun who faced down Billy the Kid and saved a man from a lynch mob in the Old West is to have her Cause for Sainthood opened in New Mexico, USA.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has confirmed that it has received Vatican approval for a full investigation towards sainthood for Italian-born Sister Blandina Segale of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, who worked with the poor and sick in the state in the late 19th Century and established schools and a hospital which are still in operation today.
Already dubbed ‘the fastest nun in the West’ by local historians, Sr Blandina is famous both in Colorado and New Mexico for her western ‘adventures’. It is recorded that, while in Trinidad, Colorado, the nun intervened to save a man who was to be lynched by a mob seeking vengeance for the shooting of a neighbour. Sr Blandina convinced the dying man to publicly forgive the wanted man and to call for the law to deal with him, after which the mob reportedly dispersed.
The nun is best remembered, however, for two encounters with the legendary Billy the Kid.
In the first, the nun treated an injured member of the Kid’s outlaw gang after doctors had refused to do so. When Billy the Kid arrived in Trinidad seeking to scalp the doctors, Sr Blandina asked that he instead spare them in return for the care she had given his accomplice, a request duly granted.
Later, while working in Santa Fe, a stagecoach carrying Sr Blandia and others was held up by masked outlaws. However, at a signal from one, the rest of the bandits reportedly rode away while the remaining masked man tipped his hat to the nun before following. Much later, Sr Blandina confirmed that the man had been Billy the Kid.
Having founded St Joseph’s Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sr Blandina returned to Cincinnati in 1897 to start Santa Maria Institute, which served recent immigrants. Sr Blandina died in 1941.
The opening of the nun’s cause is the first such move for a figure linked with the Church in New Mexico.