Obituaries are seldom a time for irony, even when the subject is known to be religious.

Recent obituaries for Sister Susan Moran of Toronto, who died on December 18th, 2016, warranted a full page in Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail (January 6th), as well as shorter tributes from The Toronto Star and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. What was remarkable was that every one of them was entirely positive, appreciative, and even affectionate. So who was Susan Moran?

In 1986, in response to the death of a homeless man who was her friend, Sister Susan, of the Roman Catholic order Our Lady’s Missionaries, began a program called Out of the Cold, to offer overnight accommodation and hot meals to homeless people. Today, some 20 sites across Toronto (nobody knows the precise number) now offer Out of the Cold, including churches of many denominations, mosques, and synagogues. And the vision has spread. In my own city of Hamilton, an hour west of Toronto, the Out of the Cold website records 11 sites offering the program, including Anglican, Baptist, Ukrainian Catholic, Christian Reformed, and Presbyterian churches. A smaller city, Barrie, an hour north of Toronto, with a population somewhat under 200,000, has five Out of the Cold sites in Catholic, Community, Presbyterian, and United churches. Thousands of volunteers from an even wider variety of backgrounds make up the teams who make the program happen. The goal is to have at least one site open every night of the week during the coldest of weather between November and the coming of spring.

Not surprisingly, such an initiative has caught the attention of the media. This was partly due to the personality of Sister Susan, universally described as “very feisty.” Her persistence in phoning anybody who could help the work caused her niece to describe her as a “phonoholic.” Nor was she an office-bound administrator. She was frequently to be found helping out at Out of the Cold sites, and befriending homeless people. In 1998, she was involved in an initiative to declare homelessness a national emergency. She always hoped that the city of Toronto would take over the running of Out of the Cold, believing that her work was only a stop-gap measure. (Not the first or last time that a good stop-gap has been allowed to stop the gap for much longer than intended.)

Sister Susan was not shy of explaining the origin of the program in her faith: “Out of the Cold is a response initiated I believe in the heart of God,” she said in a video about her work in 2001. In 2007, in an interview with The Toronto Star, she unabashedly used (and they reported) the words “mission” and “calling”: “I knew my mission, my calling was here with the homeless. We have to take better care of our vulnerable. There has to be better affordable housing.”

It is indicative of her public profile that, when she died, Toronto mayor John Tory tweeted, “I join Torontonians in mourning the loss of Sister Susan Moran, co-founder of the Out of the Cold homeless outreach program,” adding, “She has left the city a lasting legacy that is deeply appreciated.”

Sightings readers hardly need reminding of the times or the issues over which the Church comes in for criticism in the press. And there are those who (understandably) become somewhat paranoid, feeling as a result that the press only reports the bad stuff that churches do. But it is salutary to notice that when churches do recognizably “good stuff,” the press is perfectly capable of naming it—and acknowledging its source in Christian faith—without qualification. Not that every authentic Christian activity is likely to receive praise: taking up one’s cross doesn’t generally get headlines, nor will repentance and faith, or prayer and praise, often be reported. But the public fruits of those activities—things that are seen to contribute to human flourishing—those continue to be acknowledged in the media with gratitude.

Resources

- Israel, Solomon. Susan Moran, nun who co-founded Out of the Cold program, dead at 78. CBC News. December 20, 2016.

- Mathieu, Emily. Sister Susan Moran dedicated her life to helping the homeless. The Toronto Star. December 21, 2016.

- Peters, Diane. Out of the Cold co-founder Sister Susan Moran was tireless advocate for homeless. The Globe and Mail. January 6, 2017.

Image: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in winter | Photo credit: allen/Flickr (cc)