Nun who persevered in prison ministry until age 99 dies at 105

Published: 2004-12-23

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- When Trinitarian Sister Peter Claver Fahy came to Philadelphia at the age of 80 to begin a ministry of prayer in her official "retirement," she immediately set to work in some of the toughest prisons in the region. She continued to work without fanfare, leading prayer and Bible readings in her ministry to incarcerated men and writing letters to judges on their behalf, until she could no longer hobble down the long prison halls at age 99. Loved and respected by wealthy businessmen and prison inmates, Sister Peter Claver died Dec. 3 at the age of 105 at the motherhouse of her order, the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, in Philadelphia. Sister Peter Claver's influence was wide enough to encompass the great Catholic activist Dorothy Day, and inmates at the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility. "She had a profound impact. She was an extremely zealous missionary, and she was able to think outside the box," said Sister Barbara deMondeville, historian for the Trinitarian sisters. "All her life she found creative ways to work with the poor and to work with prisoners. She established houses of hospitality for women in crisis long before that was the thing to do."

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