Pittsburgh-Post Gazette: When 22 nuns came to Pittsburgh, they were taken out to the ballgame
Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth visit American cities where they served immigrants
Excerpt: Twenty-two nuns from Poland and several other countries visited Pittsburgh last month as part of a pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of Mother Frances Siedliska, a Polish noblewoman who founded their order and arrived in Pittsburgh in the late 1890s.
They also got to do something Mother Frances probably never did — attend a Pirates baseball game. They watched the home team beat the Boston Red Sox 8-4 on Aug. 14 at PNC Park.
After founding the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in 1875 in Rome, Italy, Mother Frances and 11 other pioneering nuns arrived in Chicago 10 years later to help immigrant workers who were arriving in American cities by the thousands to work in mills, mines and crowded factories.
Their mission was to support and educate immigrant Catholic families, said Sister Linda Yankoski, who organized the pilgrimage to Chicago and other important sites for the order in New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in August. She is the president emeritus of the Holy Family Institute and retired from the Catholic social services agency last year after leading it for 40 years.
Since many of the visitors did not speak English, Sister Linda relied on Sister Daniela Gwizdz, a Polish nun who works in Ghana.
“Sister Daniela was my specialist and translator,” she said.
Sister Linda asked her superior to allow the nuns to come to the United States, where the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth ran schools and orphanages. She thought this would be a good way to honor Mother Frances as well as educate nuns who serve around the world.
“There is a sense in America that everything comes easy,” she said.
While it might seem odd to attend a baseball game on a pilgrimage, Sister Linda said visiting churches and schools is only part of the story about the order’s work in the United States. The nuns were shaped by the belief that they “must go where ordinary life is lived,” she said.
“We have always believed that God is wholly present in ordinary life and that a family’s evening is holy ground. And baseball is one of those pleasures.”
The Pirates rolled out the red carpet for the nuns, who ranged in age from their 30s to 60s. They enjoyed hot dogs and other ballpark fare and cheered for the Great Pittsburgh Pierogy Race, posing for photos with the pierogies before the game.
“I have to admit, one of the funniest things for me was seeing the running pierogi,” Sister Daniela said by email.
