Nun's life honed her for Covenant House - Mary Rose McGeady, New York City refuge for runaway and homeless children - Cover Story

National Catholic Reporter, March 7, 1997 by Arthur Jones

Seconds later, the girl came running toward the van from another direction. In an effort to fool her pimp she had run completely around the block.

She was only about 30 yards from our van and safety. Then it happened. A huge car came screeching around the corner, its headlights off in the darkness, and aimed itself directly at our van. Sheila slammed on the gas.

The car headed right for the girl. She was very, very young. Fifteen at the most, maybe even 12 or 13.

She raced across the street with the car behind her. It pulled alongside. A man jumped out, grabbed the child by the throat and started beating her. He then picked her up and threw her into the car.

Our van raced after the car. Sheila took the license number and telephoned it in to the police. They said there was nothing they could do.

I can't get this girl out of my mind.

NEW YORK -- Thirty-nine years before Sr. Mary Rose McGeady wrote that description in a letter she was a young, warmhearted nun with her comforting arms around disturbed young children at Astor House in Rhinebeck, N.Y. It was 1958. The kids then were all from New York City.

Her friend and fellow Daughter of Charity, Sr. Mary Patricia Finneran, said, "We took care of them as though they were our own."

The troubled children were a microcosm of what was to come. So in one sense, McGeady (pronounced McGaydy) has heard it all before. But nothing like she sees it and hears it as president of Covenant House, the New York-based organization that welcomes cast-out and runaway children.

The 1990s are different -- in the intensity of the times, in the depth of the pain, in the numbers of kids.

"These kids are the off-scouring of the earth," she said. The 1990s are different in the viciousness that encircles the ever younger kids and robs most of them of a chance of ever having lives. On average, every six minutes, somewhere in the United States, a child who has been beaten, raped, used as a drug runner, thrown out of the house or who has run away calls the Covenant House "Nineline" -- 1-800-999-9999. The number receives 88,000 calls a year.

Every night as the street lights go on and the world turns dark, Covenant House vans in eight U.S. cities (soon to be 10) and five countries start their patrols. In New York City alone, 6,000 youngsters a year pass through the crisis center.

"No thanks, Sister," the tiny voice called from the shadows. "I'll be OK. Don't worry." The tiny kid standing in the darkness felt his voice crack, and I knew he was lying. I caught the lump in my throat and I tried to stay cool.

For several nights our van team had pursued the 10-year-old boy, pulling alongside him to offer help.

I could see the longing in his eyes every time he said no. I prayed to God. I knew time was running out for him.

Finally, tonight, the big breakthrough came. Tonight, when he stepped out of the shadows, his face was black and blue and swollen and dripping tears.

"I'm scared. I got no place to go."

I reached out and hugged him as hard as I could. I already imagine what he'll say to me the first time we talk.

Mary Rose McGeady was born in 1928 in Hazleton, Pa. Her father was an air conditioning engineer, her mother a homemaker and "mathematical whiz" with a great concern for the poor. Each parent had a great sense of humor. The Depression hit. Her father didn't work for 15 months. In 1935, shortly after daughter Catherine was born, the McGeady's moved to Washington, D.C.

As kid sisters go, Catherine was very lucky. "From what I hear from my pals" said Catherine Pendleton, "some younger sisters report their older sister was a witch. Not mine. I have to report she was actually very nice to me."

When Mary Rose started high school, Mrs. McGeady worked as an accountant to help pay for her daughters' Catholic education. To make sure Catherine was fine, she would ask Mary Rose, "Please take Catherine with you." Catherine said her sister "swam, bowled, danced and what have you -- but she never griped about taking me."

After Holy Comforter School in Washington, McGeady attended Immaculate Conception Academy, run by the Daughters of Charity. She entered the novitiate after high school, was educated as a psychologist, at Fordham for her master's and the University of Massachusetts for a doctorate. She's ABD -- all but dissertation.

Her first work assignment was in Boston at a Catholic home for destitute children. "I was working with really hurt kids. The kids then were coming more from alcoholic homes, from mothers in mental hospitals. Family breakdown, family disintegration, family conflict was always the basis of the problem and it still is today. When the family fails, that's when the kids suffer," she told NCR.

"I think a lot of couples give up too easily -- sometimes I meet parents who think they did a good job preparing their kids for divorce," she said. "But kids never get over the loss of the other parent.

"We see a lot of kids who've never known family, or if they've seen it, it's been in the midst of conflict and pain and infidelity -- kids who don't have a father but who've had five fathers or [have] four brothers and sisters by four different men."