Daughters of St. Paul replaces local leader

Religious order had sued O’Malley

May 27, 2011|By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

Sister Margaret Timothy Sato, at left in this photo from March, has been… (KAYANA SZYMCZAK FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

The international head of the Daughters of St. Paul has replaced the leader of the order’s US province, which last year filed a highly unusual lawsuit against Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley over pension issues.

The successor to Sister Margaret Timothy Sato arrived at the Daughters’ provincial headquarters in Jamaica Plain shortly after the order’s superior general, Sister M. Antonieta Bruscato, flew to Boston from Rome and met with O’Malley in the rectory of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End.

In that meeting, the cardinal and Bruscato expressed dismay that the Daughters’ US province had taken the extraordinary step of suing O’Malley and other trustees of a church-run pension fund in court rather than resolving their differences in a more amicable way, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak about the conversation.

The two sides in the lawsuit revealed this week that they had reached an agreement earlier this month, prior to Bruscato’s visit, that ended the court battle and gave the Daughters the control they had sought over pension funds invested with the Archdiocese of Boston.

Richard Nicotra, a Staten Island hotelier who is a significant benefactor of the Daughters, said in an interview with the Globe Monday that Sato and other nuns were deeply distraught about the leadership change. He said they told him that the cardinal had called Bruscato in Rome and told her that he was embarrassed by the lawsuit. As a result, Nicotra said the nuns told him, Bruscato came to Boston and ousted Sato.

“What the nuns in Boston were so upset about was that she didn’t have their back,’’ he said.

The US province’s new superior, Sister Mary Leonora Wilson, disputed that version of events. In an interview Wednesday, Wilson said that Bruscato had decided shortly after Easter not to reappoint Sato when her first three-year term expired this spring and that she had notified both nuns well in advance.

Wilson said it is common for provincial superiors to serve only a single term.

“We never ask reasons,’’ Wilson said. “This is such a normal procedure. It’s done each time. At the end of my three years, it will be the same thing.’’

A spokesman for the archdiocese said O’Malley — who is also a member of a religious order, the Capuchin Friars — would never interfere with any order’s internal leadership decisions.

“He did not insert himself or voice his opinion about Sister Timothy’s assignment,’’ said Terrence C. Donilon, the archdiocesan spokesman. “It’s not his style, and it’s not what he would do.’’