Nun

THE DIVINE SISTER Presented by: SpeakEasy Stage Company At: Roberts Studio Theatre, Stanford Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, Friday through Nov. 19. Tickets: $30-$55. 617-933-8600, www.speakeasystage.com It's 1966, and Mother Superior has her hands full at financially challenged St. Veronica's convent school in Pittsburgh. The young postulant Agnes sees holy visions in a rhubarb pie and a student's dirty underwear. Sister Acacius can't take any more of that nonsense.

PHILADELPHIA - A Roman Catholic nun testified Thursday that she and two relatives were sexually abused by a priest who was described by a church leader as "one of the sickest people I ever knew. " The nun testified in the clergy-abuse trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the first US church official charged with felony child endangerment for allegedly leaving predator-priests in ministry. The nun said she, her sister, and her cousin went to the archdiocese in 1991 to report 1970s-era abuse by the Rev. Nicholas Cudemo and to ask that he be removed as a pastor.

GUSTAVIA, St. Barts — Sister Eugenie Blanchard, a nun who was considered the world’s oldest person, died in the French Caribbean island of St. Barts yesterday. She was 114. Sister Blanchard, known to friends as Sweets because of her kindness, died at Bruyn Hospital, where she had lived in the geriatric ward since 1980, said hospital director Pierre Nuty. Her cousin, Armelle Blanchard, said that while Sister Blanchard could no longer talk, she had seemed to be in relatively good health.

A Roman Catholic nun testified Thursday that she and two relatives were sexually abused by a priest described by a church leader as "one of the sickest people I ever knew. " The nun testified in the clergy-abuse trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official charged with felony child endangerment for allegedly leaving predator-priests in ministry. The nun said she, her sister and cousin went to the archdiocese in 1991 to report 1970s-era abuse by the Rev. Nicholas Cudemo, and ask that he be removed as a parish pastor.

PHILADELPHIA - A Roman Catholic nun testified Thursday that she and two relatives were sexually abused by a priest who was described by a church leader as "one of the sickest people I ever knew. " The nun testified in the clergy-abuse trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the first US church official charged with felony child endangerment for allegedly leaving predator-priests in ministry. The nun said she, her sister, and her cousin went to the archdiocese in 1991 to report 1970s-era abuse by the Rev. Nicholas Cudemo and to ask that he be removed as a pastor.

WASHINGTON — In Arizona, the shooting death of a rancher blew the lid off simmering anger over border security and helped solidify support for a tough new immigration law. A similar eruption threatens in Virginia following the death of a Catholic nun in a car accident involving a man in the country illegally and accused of drunken driving. The Benedictine Sisters of Virginia tried to discourage using the death of Sister Denise Mosier as a “forum of the illegal immigration agenda’’ and pleaded for a focus on “Christ’s command to forgive.’’ “The sisters’ mission...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Sister Leonella, a nun who devoted her life to helping the sick in Africa, used to joke that there was a bullet with her name engraved on it in Somalia. When the bullet came, she used her last breaths to forgive those responsible. "I forgive, I forgive," she whispered in her native Italian just before she died Sunday in the Somali capital, the Rev. Maloba Wesonga said at the nun's memorial Mass in Nairobi yesterday. Sister Leonella's slaying raised concerns that she and other foreigners killed in Somalia recently are victims of growing...

PARIS - Sister Emmanuelle, a nun who lived for years among scavengers in Cairo's slums and who has been compared to Mother Teresa for her fight to defend the rights of the poor, died yesterday at age 99. Sister Emmanuelle spent more than two decades working with Cairo's zabbaleen, or garbage collectors, who eke out a living by scavenging. She helped create a network of clinics, schools, and gardens to serve the children of the slums.

THE FAMILY: A Musical About the Mob At: Lederer Theater Center, Providence, through July 1. Tickets: 401-351-4242, www.trinityrep.com PAWTUCKET, R.I. — Barely two minutes into an interview, Arlene Violet tosses off a sentence that quite possibly has never been uttered before by a librettist in the entire history of the American musical theater: “When I was attorney general, I prosecuted a lot of mob guys.’’ Not your typical...

WHO Deborah Plummer WHAT The psychologist and former nun used her own story as a backdrop for her first novel, "They Still Call Me Sister," released under the name Deborah Plummer Bussey. Also the author of an acclaimed book on racial diversity, she is a race relations expert who has been a vice chancellor in the University of Massachusetts system. Q. You are African-American, a psychologist, and a former nun. That's quite a combination. How did that collective background help you lay the blueprint for "They Still Call Me...

Three respected Catholic publications are reporting that Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the controversial former Boston archbishop, played a key role in the Vatican's decision to tighten its grip on the largest association of Catholic nuns in the United States. The Vatican announced its initiative on April 18, naming three American prelates to ensure that US nuns conform to Church doctrine, which has grown more conservative under Pope John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. Earlier this week, a columnist for The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly, reported that the Vatican's initiative...

Thank you to Joan Vennochi for expressing so well the feelings of thousands of Catholics regarding the dispute between the Vatican and Leadership Conference of Women Religious ("Pope's ire aimed at wrong target," Op-ed, April 22). Our dismay at the insulting demonstration of power from Rome is hard to describe. The ministries of these women represent the best of church in their pursuit of dignity and justice for all people. Yet the Vatican condemns them to an inquisition. I believe this may be a Rosa Parks moment for American Catholics.

The Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog announced Wednesday a full-scale overhaul of a group representing most US nuns and named an American archbishop to oversee the reform. The Vatican agency cited the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for Roman Catholic religious sisters in the United States, for using materials that "do not promote church teaching" on family life and sexuality, for sometimes taking positions in opposition to the nation's bishops, and for being "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively...

PHILADELPHIA - A nun testified Monday in a landmark church sex-abuse trial that she was fired from a southeastern Pennsylvania parish for reporting concerns to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia about explicit mail that a priest had received. Sister Joan Scary said she lost her job as director of education at St. Gabriel's in the rural Montgomery County town of Stowe after she complained to then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua about the Rev. Edward DePaoli shortly after his arrival in 1995.

WHO Deborah Plummer WHAT The psychologist and former nun used her own story as a backdrop for her first novel, "They Still Call Me Sister," released under the name Deborah Plummer Bussey. Also the author of an acclaimed book on racial diversity, she is a race relations expert who has been a vice chancellor in the University of Massachusetts system. Q. You are African-American, a psychologist, and a former nun. That's quite a combination. How did that collective background help you lay the blueprint for "They Still Call Me Sister"?

At least one person on the Oscars red carpet won't have to worry about what to wear: Mother Dolores Hart. The 73-year-old nun, who left Hollywood in 1963 to join a monastery after starring in films with the likes of Elvis Presley and George Hamilton, is among the nominated documentary film subjects slated to attend Sunday's 84th annual Academy Awards. Hart, who will be sporting her nun's habit, is chronicled in the short film "God Is the Bigger Elvis. " Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson, the short's filmmakers, said at a panel discussion at the motion...

TOLEDO, Ohio -- A Roman Catholic priest was charged in the 1980 killing of a nun whose body was found in the chapel of the hospital where he served as chaplain, police said. The Rev. Gerald Robinson, 63, was arrested Friday, five months after police reopened the investigation into the death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, Police Chief Mike Navarre said. Pahl, 71, was stabbed about 30 times and strangled on April 5, 1980. Her body was found in the chapel of Toledo's Mercy Hospital where she was the caretaker.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI approved sainthood for Mother Mary MacKillop yesterday, making the woman known for her work among the needy Australia’s first saint. The pope made the announcement during a ceremony at the Vatican and set the formal canonization for Oct. 17 in Rome. Five others - from Italy, Spain, Poland, and Canada - will be canonized at the same time. MacKillop founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, an order that built dozens of schools for impoverished children across the Australian Outback in the 1800s, as well as orphanages...

Rights groups are denouncing the arrests of nuns and priests and Congo's violent suppression of religious protests against fraud-riddled elections. Congo's Voice of the Voiceless rights group said Friday that three priests and two nuns were jailed. The U.S. Carter Center also reported Thursday that the government shut down three more radio and television stations including one run by the Catholic Church. Catholic leaders had called on Christians and others to march Thursday to demand the truth about Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections.