Angelus News | May 17, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 18

jubilee as a religious: “We of Alcoholics Anonymous look
upon you as the finest friend and the greatest spirit we have
ever known.”
She corresponded with President Kennedy, refused the
actress Loretta Young’s interest in presenting her
life on television, and was known nationally
and even internationally for her work with
alcoholics, whom she compared with
the orphans she had thought to work
with in her mission as a religious.
Stories about her feistiness and her
spirituality abound. A man told her
he was drinking because he had
lost his job and couldn’t support his
family.
“That makes sense,” she said,
“Because drinking is going to help
them a lot.”
Even in her latter days, when she was
in a wheelchair, she could tame men
whose sickness and anger made them unmanageable
to themselves and others. Her fiveday
program and initiation in the AA saw thousands of
men and women, including alcoholic priests and nuns, to
a better life.
Almost all of the alcoholics (and their wives and children)
whom Ignatia helped considered her a living saint.
A Cleveland priest in his 90s tells a story about a milkman
who knocked on a rectory door one day in a desperate
state. The man wanted a phone to call Ignatia. He had
been in an accident with the milk wagon and had decided
to go back to drinking.
Sister had given him a Sacred Heart badge as he left
Rosary Hall and had told him, “Before you drink again, I
Sister Mary Ignatia
Gavin, CSA
want you to call me.” The priest was able to help the man
with another plan, called his employer and saved the day.
He never forgot the way the man’s loyalty — confused as it
was — to Ignatia. The badge had been a life preserver.
There were contradictory elements in her saintly
life. She was obedient to her bishop who
prohibited her from speaking to a National
Clergy Conference, but refused treatment
to another bishop who wanted to
stay at Rosary Hall without complying
with its program.
Ignatia retired to the motherhouse
in May 1965. Her successors at Rosary
Hall kept in touch with her and
were afraid to upset her by talking
about changes to be made in treatment,
changes later mostly regretted.
Her health gradually declined and on
April 1, 1966, she went home to God.
Cleveland’s AA community has not forgotten
her and celebrates a Mass each year in her
memory.
Many members have a keen interest in her cause for
canonization, as does her religious community. After
hearing about her, an AA member who had lived in LA
and just moved to Cleveland said, “Maybe why I am here
is like what was said in the homily about God making turnarounds
in our lives, writing straight with crooked lines.”
We could use another saint for that.
Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy Name Church in
Cleveland, Ohio, and author of the new book “The Wedding”
(Lambing Press, $16.95).
SISTERS OF CHARITY OF ST. UGUSTINE
Sister Ignatia, AA co-founder Bill Wilson, Father Otis Winchester, and Mary Vorhees.
SISTERS OF CHARITY OF ST. AUGUSTINE
May 17, 2019 • ANGELUS • 21