Volume 18, Number 10 · June 1, 1972
Harrisburg: The Politics of Salvation
By Francine du Plessix Gray
In 1849 a maverick priest in the town of Béziers, France, founded an order of nuns which he called 'Les Religieuses du Sacré Coeur de Marie,' whose aim would be to educate young girls to work among the poor. Father Jean Pierre Gailhac was an eccentric and a social activist. He had chosen to be chaplain at the local hôtel-Dieu rather than preach or teach, and had also set up a rehabilitation center for prostitutes. Like the order he founded, Gailhac seemed destined for occasional trouble, and was even accused, midway in his career, of poisoning some nuns. Notwithstanding his personal tribulations, his order flourished, and a small mission was sent to the United States in the 1880s to establish a convent on these shores.
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