Says she had a reputation of “insubordination”. But I don’t understand why her “denouncement of abusers” would be “a nasty footnote”.
newser.com/story/102140/an-actual-saint-may-be-canonised.html
The “insubordination” was basically due to the fact she wanted her own order of sisters to make most of their own decisions. Bishop Sheil wanted all parties to answer to him.
Reading between the lines, I think she didn’t trust certain priests, and by extension the bishop. Her work mainly was with orphans and street children, the same sort of kids who would have been easy prey for the occasional paedophile priest.
In other words, I think she was determined to protect the children entrusted to her care. And if that meant defying the bishop, then so be it. She didn’t back down, and just kept on going. In the end,
he rescinded. In fact, I think you could almost say he recanted.
The “nasty footnote” is a media comment, meaning that there was even back then an undercurrent of paedophilia in the Catholic Church. And I’m afraid that in some quarters there was.
I think it’s been a problem for a long time, even if it only affected a relatively small proportion of the children and school children under the care and tuition of the Catholic Church. It’s about time it stopped, for good.
