Richard A. Sokerka
Those of us of a certain age grew up with cowboy “heroes” like the Lone Ranger who tried to tame the Wild West in the battle of good versus evil on TV shows.
But in reality the Lone Ranger doesn’t hold a candle to an Italian-born nun, now on the path to sainthood, who stood toe-to-toe with bad guys like Billy the Kid to stem the lawlessness that was rampant in the Wild West.
Meet Servant of God Sister Blandina Segale, a 19th century Sister of Charity, whose clashes with outlaws and untiring work for immigrants in the American Southwest is a story all Catholics should point to with pride.
Her legend is such that it will be featured in “At the End of the Santa Fe Trail,” a television series being produced by Saint Hood Productions of Albuquerque, N.M. One of the stories focuses on a tip that Sister Blandania received that Billy the Kid was coming to town to scalp four doctors who refused to treat his friend’s gunshot wound. She took it upon herself to nurse that person to heath and when Billy the Kid arrived and saw what happened, he went to thank the nun and she persuaded him not to go ahead with the dastardly deeds he planned for the doctors. Stories also told of how she calmed mobs of armed men who were going to take the law into their own hands and helped criminals seek forgiveness from their victims. In addition, she served as a teacher, opened a Wayfarers’ House, became a defender of Native Americans and immigrants and went on begging trips to mining and railroad camps to raise money to support the Sisters of Charity’s missions.
Sister Blandina Segale’s cause for sainthood by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, is the first time in the New Mexico Church’s 400-year history that a decree opening the cause of beatification and canonization has been declared. That happened in 2014 and the archdiocese has since formally closed its inquiry and sent it findings to the Vatican for examination.
The TV show based on her life of fighting violence with non-violence will serve to bring her heroic virtues to a much larger audience and speed along her cause so that she can be canonized.