This story from the end of Santa Fe trail
Purchase Chavez is an agency, lawyer, former city councilor and a mayor candidate in Santa Fe. His family can be traced back to New Mexico 400 years ago, when the first Spanish immigrants came to the area. He is now one of the most respected investigators in the state. He is good at criminal defense, civil litigation and death penalty cases. It is estimated that he interviewed about 40,000 people in his career. "In 43 years of investigation," he said, "I thought I had seen everything I could in human nature."
But last spring, Chavez took a case that made him stagnate. The investigation involved a madman, a lynching thug, an Irishman in prison, a stagecoach, a Jewish businessman with a revolver, a free slave, a wild horse keeper, a child Billy and a brave Catholic nun. The target of this case is a nun. She is the younger sister of a charity called Blandina Siegel, but she is older than her. She was stationed in Santa Fe, Colorado and Trinidad in the 1970s and 1980s. Blandina is deeply loved by Catholics in New Mexico. Her adventures in the southwest are immortal at the end of the Santa Fe trail. This is a collection of letters she wrote to her sister, which was published as a book on 1932. Later, she was well received in ic books in the middle of the century and in the TV program Death Valley Day of 1966, and she was unforgettable and called "the fastest nun in the west".
Now Sister Blandina is regarded as a saint. This is the first nun in the history of the New Mexico church in 4 18. That's why peso Chavez is involved. Blandina's admirers hired him to help state the facts. Chavez said: "This is the most ominous and humble survey I have ever done." I'm shivering in my boots. "
He pushed his chair back from the conference table and waved a black crocodile cowboy boot in the air. "Really, wearing my boots."
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Sister Blandina was born in 1850 in Maria Rosa Segel, a mountainous area near Genoa in northern Italy, and moved to Cincinnati with her family at the age of 4. /kloc-at the age of 0/6, she took the oath with the charity nuns in Cincinnati; 1872, she boarded a coach and went to Trinidad, Colorado, and began her missionary career. This is a demanding position. A young woman went to a place that belonged to Mexico 24 years ago alone. Now it is home to treasure hunters, soldiers, civil war veterans, free slaves, displaced aborigines, cowboys and farmers. Blandina wrote, "The rich are looking for millionaires, land plunderers, experienced and inexperienced miners, quacks, professional liars and propagandists."
Chavez said, "There is no law and order. Whoever has the most guns and whose horse runs fastest can do whatever he wants.
But Blandina has great strength and courage. She quickly emerged, caring for the sick, educating the poor, building schools and hospitals, and speaking for the rights of Hispanics and displaced Indians. "When she saw the need," said Allen Sanchez, who hired Chavez to investigate her life, "she met the need."
It is a charity sisterhood in Trinidad, Colorado, about 1872. From left: Blandina Segur, Eulalia Whitty, Marcella Heller and Fidelis McCarthy. (Cincinnati Sisters of Charity) Sanchez is the main supporter of Blandina, a sunny former seminary student with a Vatican pin on his collar and a passion for Blandina on his sleeve. Sanchez grew up in a small town in southern Albuquerque, and was a member of 12 brothers and sisters. When he was a child, he knew Sister Blandina, and all Catholic children in New Mexico knew it first. He struggled with learning disabilities and began to learn to read in the tenth grade, but later he studied for a priest's degree in Rome and obtained advanced degrees in theology and spirituality. 1993, when Cardinal John O 'Connor told him that the first sex scandal in New Mexico would force the archbishop of the state to resign, he was still two weeks away from the ordination. Sanchez postponed his ordination and finally decided that his mission was not to be a priest, but to serve the poor. Then, he led a small faith-sharing group department and served as the chief lobbyist for the Bishop of New Mexico. In the state legislature, he has been tirelessly advocating immigrants and poor children.
In 2008, he became the chairman of the Catholic charity CHI St. Joseph's. The group sold St Joseph's Hospital, which was founded by Blandina in Albuquerque. When the organization tried to transform into a community health service organization, Sanchez reread Blandina's book and came to a "beautiful conclusion", that is, the organization should fund an army of women and provide weekly home visits for low-income mothers and babies-"Modern Blandina", which serves the poorest children in the poorest States in the United States. "Her books still have an impact on us," he said, "and on what we are doing."
In return for this inspiration, the organization is determined to seek the title of saint for Blandina. At present, there are dozens of active American saints, many of whom have been weak for many years. However, Blandina's initial submission to the Vatican made rapid progress. On June 29th, 20 14, her "career" was officially opened.
This process began with a visit to Blandina's tomb in Cincinnati (she returned to her monastery home in 1893 and died in 194 1 year). There, he said, Sanchez and other members of the investigation committee determined that Blandina was actually "dead". Then began a complicated ceremony, * * * books, decrees, judicial quotations, transcripts, confessions, posturists, notaries and theological examiners carefully examined Blandina's words and deeds. Sanchez explained that it's like a secular grand jury procedure, except that "they check your whole life."
This is where peso Chavez comes in. Sanchez said: "We need someone who knows how to use * * * records." . Together with two nuns in Cincinnati, Chavez was appointed as a historical mission to record Blandina's "heroic virtue"-an outstanding work in her life. When the nuns checked her property and letters at Cincinnati headquarters, Chavez was looking for evidence of Blandina's charity in the southwest.
"It's hard to go back to 14 1 years ago, but I handle it like any other case," said private investigator peso Chavez of Santa Fe. (Eduardo Rubiano) Chavez's first concern was an incident recorded by Blandina. She wrote that at first, a boy named John came to meet his sister in the classroom in Brandina, Trinidad. "He looks pale. I asked him, "What happened?" ?
The thing is, John's father shot a man in the leg. The gun is full of bullets and the victim is dying slowly. John's father was sitting in prison, and a mob gathered outside, waiting for the man to die, so as to hang the murderer. So she planned a plan: she persuaded the dying "Irish young man" to forgive his gunman. Fearing that the mob would "tear the gunman to pieces ten feet before he left the prison", she took the prisoner "trembling like an poplar" through the angry crowd. "Strong fear possessed me," Blandina wrote. They continued to walk into the ward, and the murderer bowed his head and said, "Son, I don't know what I am doing." "Forgive me."
"I forgive you," the dying man replied. The prisoner is safe until the judge announces the trial and sends him to prison.
Sanchez thinks that Billy said to her, "You will find that we are ready."
Now is such a moment. On the afternoon after their trip, Abraham's coachman shouted in the carriage that someone was riding his horse and running towards them. Abraham and another man in the carriage took out revolvers. The rider approached. Blandina recalled: "At this time, the two gentlemen were very excited. But when Billy approached Blandina's carriage, she advised Abraham to put down his gun. A "soft horseshoe" approached, and Blandina moved her hat so that the gangster could see her: "Our eyes met. He raised his hat with a big brim, waved and bowed, looked at the person he recognized, flew quite three strokes, and then stopped to introduce us to some wonderful antics in wild horse practice. " The carriage galloped. She wrote: "Our trip from Trinidad to Santa Fe was the fastest ever. ".In fact, she is the fastest nun in the West.
Chavez's research was complicated by two Billy children who roamed the desert from 65438 to 0877: the famous Billy william bonney, who did many illegal activities in southern New Mexico and eastern Arizona, and the little-known Billy Leroy who threatened northern New Mexico. Chavez made a chart, tracked the date and events witnessed by Billy, and determined that it was probably the second Billy. Thanks to Blandina's intervention, my great-great grandfather was saved. When Sanchez appeared with me on a radio program about Sister Blandina, he learned about my research. He put me in touch with Chavez, who interviewed me to make sure that Abraham Stubb and his frustrated wife Julia really existed. Blandina helped everyone.
"Does she have the virtues of faith, hope and charity? Asked Oscar Coelho, the priest who testified for the investigation. "For me," he said, "she did it. "
Her sister Blandina founded Santa Maria College in Cincinnati to help immigrants. (Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati) * * * *
Last autumn, the recently retired Archbishop of New Mexico, Michael Sheehan, issued a decree saying that there was enough evidence to prove Blandina's virtue. Sanchez went to Rome with a 2000-page document for theologians in the Vatican to review. Now, Blandina must create two verifiable miracles, such as helping cancer patients who pray to her, or saving deported immigrants. Sanchez said: "It is more difficult to prove miracles now. His team is now investigating many possible miracles (confidential until confirmed). If they pass the initial call, everyone will have their own hearing, testimony and, in the case of a medical miracle, a team of doctors. It is reported that a woman saw Jesus' face in a tortilla after praying to Brandina. Sanchez decided not to pursue this face.
Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of New Mexico is planning to restore the Albuquerque Monastery in Brandina and the nearby adobe church. If the Vatican agrees that Blandina should be "respected", it will be the first step towards becoming a saint, who will house a temple and some relics of Blandina. This may happen within a year. "The Pope likes her," Sanchez said. "However, the identity of saints is more controversial than before. In 20 15, Father Jupiro Serra, who established the first Catholic missionary institution in California, was ordained, which proved to be controversial: many people believed that he was responsible for the mistreatment of native Americans. Mother Teresa was promoted to sainthood in September this year. She was accused of secretly baptizing dying Hindus and patients and accepting donations from criminals and dictators.
Sister Blandina has her moments of anxiety. While advocating local residents, she wrote: "Our generation will be ashamed of this behavior and the legitimate owners of the land", and she lamented that they "have no will". When telling a story to Billy, she tried to capture the dialect of "darkness" (her words) on the bus. What is disturbing is: "Massa, there are some people skimming across the plain, not far away."
Nevertheless, Sanchez believes that Blandina has conveyed a "message today"-I hope that the disadvantaged groups can help immigrants, provide medical care for all, and fill the marginalized groups with * * * power. Sanchez said: "From the most innocent people to the most guilty people, she helped them." . He said she was a saint of our time. "The situation in New Mexico is very bad. We need miracles. We need a saint.