Raising Holy Hell: In Memory of Sister Anne Carlino, OSF

When Mission Outreach sent its first container of donations overseas, that container went to a hospital in Tanzania -- to the Bukoba Diocese where Sister Anne Carlino, OSF, was starting the San Damiano mission along with Stefanie Koster. Sister Anne and Stefanie were interested in bringing healthcare to the people in the area, most of whom were very poor and didn't have access to basic health services or even public health resources, such as clean water.

Sister Anne passed away last week, and in her memory and in thanks for her life, we want to share this tribute to her.

Sister Anne Carlino was a missionary in the sense that she went to where people were in need -- here or anywhere in the world -- and she was driven to do so by her faith in Jesus Christ.

How Sister Anne shared her faith, however, is Franciscan. She didn't go places and immediately pass out Bibles. She went places and offered herself, whatever time and talents she had, to first listen to the needs of the people and then serve in love. She belonged to the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, and so Sister Anne (as her Sisters also do) witnessed from a Franciscan perspective that actions, specifically love towards people, take priority over words. 

If you knew Sister Anne personally, even just meeting in passing, the force of love in her presence was palpable. And it was a force -- her love challenged the status quo. Her love pushed for what was right on behalf of people overlooked, discarded. People who are experiencing homelessness or poverty. People who are displaced from their homeland by war or political violence. People who live in places around the world that do not have equal access to resources because of racism or colonialism. 

In short, Sister Anne Carlino was the voice -- and a strong voice at that -- for people who otherwise aren't given the chance to speak. She didn't use that strong voice to change them; she listened to them. She loved them. What she used that voice for was to change the world on their behalf. 

That takes guts, which Sister Anne had. It's courage, and determination, and sheer will that good must be done -- it's guts.  

But it wasn't just Mission Outreach that got its international start with Sister Anne in the Bukoba Diocese in Tanzania; coincidentally (or not, as I happen to believe), I did too. In August of 2012, I was given permission to go visit Sister Anne at the San Damiano Mission for a month. I don't exactly remember what prompted me to even ask for this visit -- I had known of Sister Anne as a heroine from her St. John's days since my childhood, but I didn't know her personally. Yet something pushed me to find her email address and ask if I could visit her (and the three Hospital Sisters from India who were also at San Damiano) to stay with them for a month and learn about their work. It would be during that month that I would start to feel maybe I had a place in global health, and that path eventually led me to Mission Outreach. 

So in honor of Sister Anne Carlino, who gave so many people -- including me -- an example of what it means to be alive abundantly, I want to share a story from Tanzania about her ministry.

All the Sisters at San Damiano had their own work: Sister Preethi and Sister Neera did social and community work, and Sister Deepa is a nurse. She staffed the medical clinic, where Sister Anne would also help out when there were many patients. Every day at lunch, all the Sisters would come back to the convent to eat together before returning to work. During lunch we would all share what was going on that day.

On one occasion Sister Deepa was particularly distressed about a patient she had just seen. He was an infant -- not old enough to walk but could crawl. His mother brought him to the clinic that morning to show Sister Deepa the baby's arm, which had been burned badly. (It's a very common injury in children because at that time -- and probably still is so -- the cooking was done over a fire with boiling water, often in a small hut separate from the house. Children would be easily burned if boiling water was dropped or spilled.) 

The injury had happened a few weeks before, and the mother scraped together the money to get a ride to the nearest hospital, which was about 20 miles away. Even though that doesn't sound to us as though it's a long travel, in rural Tanzania it is an arduous and expensive journey with rough roads and few options for transportation if you don't have a truck. Most likely she and the baby rode on the back of a motorbike all the way there and back.

When the mother arrived at the hospital with her baby, she was told that if she couldn't pay the fees for care upfront that the child wouldn't be seen. Because she didn't have the money, she and her child went home without receiving any care.

She somehow learned about the San Damiano Clinic a few weeks later, and brought the baby there. By that time, the skin on the forearm had begun "healing" fused to the bicep. The baby was in terrible pain and the mother had nothing to put on the burn or clean gauze to wrap the arm in. The wound was also showing signs of infection. 

I still can see Sister Deepa, unable to eat her lunch, fighting tears as she told us about that baby. She didn't have to say it, but even I knew that with an injury like that and infection, that baby probably would die.

Sister Anne Carlino asked Sister Deepa where the mother was now. Sister Deepa said that she was waiting at the clinic. "Let's go," Sister Anne said to Sister Deepa, and told me to come along. The clinic was a short walk away and the mother was sitting in the shade outside. 

With incredible gentleness, Sister Anne approached the mother and asked to see the baby. What you have to know at this point is that Sister Anne was a legend in Tanzania, larger than life, to the people. Her stature, her presence, and her reputation created a sense of awe. Sister Anne also thought she spoke Swahili, but those around her actually spoke "Sister Anne," as her communication was a mash-up of Swahili, English, and Italian. That's a story in itself.

What she did effectively communicate, however, is love. The mother extended her baby to Sister Anne, who enveloped him in her arms. I could see the burn and even without medical training could tell it was bad. Sister Anne grimaced and shook her head, but she didn't make a statement. She turned to Sister Deepa and said, "Ask the lady if she'll take the baby back to the hospital with us right now."

Sister Deepa asked the question in Swahili, and the woman nodded yes.

The Sisters had a Range Rover type of truck, and we all piled in. Sister Deepa drove us to the hospital, which took about an hour to get there. 

What happened next can only be described in one way: When we got to that hospital, Sister Anne raised Holy Hell.

She found the person who had initially denied the mother care and started with him. In a flurry of Swahili, English, and Italian, she let him have it and everyone in the place stopped to listen. How could you not? Pointing at the baby's arm and then at him -- and if Sister Anne pointed, it was serious.

She then continued with the manager of the admitting department and then the Matron of the hospital. 

Her fury was righteous. What I learned later had happened -- which she knew at the time -- is that the "fee" the admitting employee had required was a bribe. That mother and baby were turned away not because they couldn't afford healthcare, or because that was even a requirement, but because that mother couldn't pay a bribe to a corrupt employee.

The Matron of the hospital, who is a Sister from Tanzania, was outraged too when she learned of what had happened. That wasn't enough for Sister Anne, though. She wanted action.

"You'll get this baby the care he needs, and you'll do it today," she stated to the Matron, banging her fist onto a counter. The same hand immediately softened as she reached to the mother, putting her arm around the woman. "He's going to be taken care of," she said softly in English.

The Matron immediately escorted the mother and baby to a clinical room. I thought we would leave, but Sister Anne sat down in the waiting area -- which is just a bunch of chairs on the hospital lawn.

When I got up the courage to speak, I asked her what we were doing. "I'm not leaving until I know that baby is going to get what he needs," she said. "And all I have to do is sit here for now."

She was right, too. About two hours passed by and while no one came to talk to us, you could see that everyone knew she was there. Finally the Matron of the hospital appeared. She spoke English and said to Sister Anne: "We have made many calls and tomorrow a surgeon will be here from Kenya to operate on the baby. He and his mother will stay here until he is able to return home. There will be no charge."

Sister Anne simply nodded. "Okay," she said, picking up her purse to leave. "And I'll be following up to see how he is." 

No one in that whole place doubted she would.

--

Before I left Tanzania to return home, we would learn that the baby's surgery was successful. He received the care and medicine he needed to clear up infection, and it was expected that his arm would heal correctly with no long-term detriments to his development or health. 

"You saved his life," I said to Sister Anne.

"Aahh," she shrugged it off. "All I did was make sure he got what he deserved. God did everything else." She then changed the subject and we didn't speak of it again.

---

That story would define Sister Anne Carlino for me, and serve as a guidepost for the remainder of my life. It also reflects the Franciscan charism Mission Outreach is built upon.

Our job here is to make sure that people, especially those most easily discarded by society, get what they deserve. They deserve respect, they deserve care, they deserve the same chance and dignity and resources and freedom that we have. And what God asks of us is to have the guts to stand up for that ideal, no matter the cost, and to always do it with love.

There will never be another saint like Anne Carlino -- but I think if she heard that, she probably would shrug at that too and quote St. Francis: "I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours."

(Written by Erica Smith, executive director of Mission Outreach -- erica.smith@mission-outreach.org)