The family of Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory, an Irish nun who founded the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, is praying Pope Leo XIV will advance her decades-long quest for sainthood.
Mother Angeline — who’s credited with two purported miracles that healed sick children — died on Jan. 21, 1984, her 91st birthday.
She founded the order in upstate Germantown in 1929 with a radical mission: creating home-like nursing facilities where the elderly, rich or poor, could live side by side with dignity.
who is currently up for sainthood in the Catholic church. Friends of Venerable Mary Angeline Teresa/ Facebook
In 2012, then-Pope Benedict XVI declared Mother Angeline had led a life of “heroic virtue,” considered a key stepping stone toward sainthood and giving her the title of “Venerable.”
Now her case for canonization rests in Rome with Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV.
“What would be more fitting than an American pope making her a saint?” grandniece Katie McCrory told The Post.
“She had European ideals and everything, spoke French, very cultured, but her impact was in America.”
Father Mario Esposito, the vice postulator for the Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory, agreed that the pope could turn the nun into a pet cause, given his recent focus on elder care.
“First of all, being an American, he would be more sensitive to the issues in health care. Catholic health care in the United States is a very big thing. The Carmelite Sisters have been at the forefront of being against physician-assisted suicide,” Esposito reasoned.
“These are issues I’m sure the pope cares about. Life has become under attack, especially the elderly.”
McCrory’s next threshold on the way to sainthood is Beatification, which requires proof of a single miracle.
Her biography has not one, but two miraculous medical events attributed to her intercession. But neither are considered proven by the Vatican due to a lack of medical records.
A toddler exhibiting signs of encephalitis — specifically being non-verbal and exhibiting very low levels of physical activity — was taken to the Germantown grave of Mother Angeline in the early 2000s, according to Esposito.
The child was placed on her tombstone and immediately started laughing and became animated with a newfound spirit.
“The family said from then on, the child was different,” Esposito explained. “Now she is in her twenties and doing beautifully.”
Unfortunately, the medical records detailing the child’s initial health diagnosis were not explicit enough for Vatican investigators.
In the second case, a pregnant woman’s unborn child had been diagnosed with hypochondroplasia — a genetic skeletal disorder.
After praying to Mother Angeline for assistance, the child was born completely healthy and at a normal size. “When the baby was born, the doctor, who was an expert in this type of syndrome, said he’d never seen anything like it,” Esposito said of the birth.
The mother, however, declined genetic testing while the child was in utero, leaving a lack of sufficient medical records to prove a miracle.
McCrory was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, spent her adolescence and teen years in Scotland, and studied in Rome to become a Little Sister of the Poor, before moving to the US in 1915.
The Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm operate, sponsor or cosponsor over 20 elder-care facilities in the US, including in New York, Florida and Pope Leo’s native Illinois.
