Thursday, February 6, 2014
F
AroundFeature
the Diocese
Southern Cross, Page 7
“Clarence was an independent thinker”:
Sister Mary Virgilius Reidy, 1913-2013
ranciscan Sisters who taught at
St. Benedict’s School during
the days of segregation were both
firm and fair. To them, the AfricanAmerican children they instructed
at the Savannah school were just
Rita H. DeLorme children — children who needed a good education and a lot of
self-respect in a society where the cards were stacked
against them. One of those taught by Sister Mary
Virgilius Reidy was Clarence Thomas who grew up
to be a Supreme Court justice. Between Thomas’s
youthful years attending school in Savannah’s inner
city and his ascendency to the highest court of the
land a lot of things happened, including the testimony
of his former eighth grade teacher, Sr. Reidy, at a
Senate hearing in 1991.
In some respects, Thomas’s youth and Sr. Reidy’s
couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Irish by birth,
Reidy grew up in a Catholic family in a largely
Catholic environment. Thomas was raised Baptist.
When he converted to Catholicism in the 1950s there
were fewer than 2,500 African-American Catholics in
the Savannah Diocese. As a black Catholic growing
up in Savannah, he was part of “a minority within a
minority”.
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, on September 6,
1913, Sr. Reidy was the youngest of eleven children
of Thomas and Mary Reidy. In 1931, she entered the
Missionary Franciscan Sisters in Rome, Italy. She
pronounced her final vows there three years later.
Geographical limits must not have meant much to
the young Franciscan. She
utilized her training and
teaching skills in such
diverse places as Brooklyn
and Solvay, NY; Milton,
MA, Rockford, IL – not
to mention in Augusta and
in Savannah - where she
taught young Clarence
at St. Benedict’s in the
eighth grade.
As Sr. Reidy went on
in life, so did her former
student, Clarence Thomas.
He attended St. Pius X
High School and St. John
Vianney Minor Seminary
in Savannah before
enrolling at Immaculate
Sister Walter Gleeson of the Tenafly Missionary Franciscan Sisters, right, wishConception Abbey in
es Sister Virgilius Reidy, left, a happy birthday during Reidy’s centennial celMissouri. After a year at
ebration
on Sept. 6, 2013. Chief Justice Clarence Thomas, visited her before
Immaculate Conception,
the
celebration.
Photo © 2013 Bernadette Marciniak /northjersey.com
Thomas transferred to Holy
Cross College, graduating
ter’s being questioned. At this time, several of those
in 1971. He capped his education with a law degree
who had known him over the years as friend or stufrom Yale. Through the years, he kept in touch with
dent, appeared before the panel to defend Thomas.
Sr. Reidy to whom he was particularly grateful.
Among these were Father John Brooks, President of
Thomas had further reason to appreciate his forHoly Cross, Hon. John Gibbons, Professor of Law
mer teacher in 1991 when a Senate hearing took
at Rutgers University, Niara Sudarkasa, President
place following his nomination as Associate Justice
of Lincoln University, and his eighth grade teacher
of the Supreme Court. The hearing turned out to be
and former principal at St. Benedict’s – Sister M.
conflicting and drawn out, with Thomas’s characVirgilius.
Called to the witness stand, Sister introduced
herself as a member of the Institute of Missionary
Franciscan Sisters before going on to speak of her
former student’s character. She said that she first
met Clarence when he was a fifth grade student at
St. Benedict’s. “Even in his early years,” she said,
“Clarence was an independent thinker.” She reviewed
hardships the boy had contended with in the Jim
Crow South and recalled his questioning recitation
of the Pledge of Allegiance which guaranteed liberty
and justice for all when people of his race weren’t
receiving these rights. Sr. Reidy said she later wondered if this had not been “the early beginnings of a
judicial mind”.
During her testimony, Sister referenced a speech
Clarence Thomas made at a 1986 Franciscan Sisters
fund raiser during which he affirmed the need for
God, values, morality and education. On this occasion Thomas observed: “The Sisters accepted our
equality without a Civil Rights Act, they accepted
equality of education without a Supreme Court deciThere IS hope...and a solution.
sion; they lived in the inner city with us before we
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knew that it was the inner city.” Concluding her testimony, Sr. Reidy said Thomas had traveled from “the
unpaved streets of our part of Savannah” to his presCall us today to speak with an
ent distinction, overcoming obstacles a lesser man
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couldn’t have overcome.
Eventually, having traveled her own long road,
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Sr. Reidy retired to Our Lady of Angels Convent
in Tenafly, NJ. When she turned 100 in September,
Find more information, take a visual
2013, the mayor of Tenafly visited her and declared
tour or make a donation at
September 6 “Sr. Reidy Reidy Day”. Prior to her
birthday celebration, Justice Thomas had paid her a
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long visit. Several months later, he was present for
her funeral.
412 West Tift Avenue, Albany, GA 31701 E-mail: [email protected]
Columnist Rita H. DeLorme is a volunteer in the Diocesan
Admissions: 229-446-7800 or toll-free 866-290-2966
Archives. She can be reached at [email protected].