Rather than separating out the simply elderly from the truly infirm, the nuns continue to live together not for financial necessity but because they feel that their deaths should not be conducted separately from their lives.

"There is a time to die and a way to do that with reverence," said Sister Mary Lou, 56, a former nurse. "Hospitals should not be meccas for dying. Dying belongs at home, in the community. We built this place with that in mind."

This is, after all, the model for modern-day hospice care, but even within the strictures of hospice, dying in one's home is less and less of an option for some people.

There are positive effects to the surroundings and the patient-care philosophy behind the convent, which is focused on allowing patients to make empowering decisions and living the ends of their lives without a fear of death. They're cared for mostly by one geriatric specialist, Dr. Robert McCann, who is able to bill Medicare for some of their costs but goes largely unreimbursed. He says:

...through a combination of philosophy and happenstance, "they have better deaths than any I've ever seen."

Dr. McCann's long relationship with the sisters gives him the time and opportunity, impossible in the hurly-burly of an intensive-care unit, to clarify goals of care long before a crisis: Whether feeding tubes or ventilators make sense. If pain control is more important than alertness. That studies show that CPR is rarely effective and often dangerous in the elderly.

"It is much easier to guide people to better choices here than in a hospital," he said, "and you don't get a lot of pushback when you suggest that more treatment is not better treatment."

There are more tangible benefits to the philosophy behind the convent: no one can recall a resident dying in a hospital; the nuns seem to enjoya lack of anxiety about death that the doctor believes comes from their religious faith. More substantively, McCann says he need only use one-third of the narcotics he uses on his other geriatric patients to manage the nuns' pain at the end of their lives. And the nurse practioner at the convent, Barbara Cocilova, has seen other benefits, too.

Among those with Alzheimer's, Ms. Cocilova said, diagnostic tests tend to produce better-than-expected results among those who are further along in the disease process, a possible result of mental stimulation.

Dr. McCann and others say that the sisters benefit from advanced education, and new ventures in retirement that keep them active.

Geriatric medicine pracitioners often emphasize the need to stay active mentally in order to maintain mental capacity; but the setting also shows that stimulation from being part of an ongoing community is also important.

McCann, who provides end-of-life-care to laypeople as well, adds another layer of thought to the community the nuns have created.

Some days, Dr. McCann said, he arrives with his "head spinning," from hospitals and intensive-care units where death can be tortured, impersonal and wastefully expensive, only to find himself in a "different world where it's really possible to focus on what's important for people" and, he adds, "what's exportable, what we can learn from an ideal environment like this."

The story is accompanied by an oral slideshow (have your tissues ready, trust me) of the nuns, McCann and some of the staff at the convent speaking. What stands out to anyone who has watched a loved one die in an institutional setting is the amount of physical contact between the sisters and their caregivers. In a hospital, there's a lot of pulse-taking and blood-drawing and all the myriad ways of touching a person that medical care requires. But in the slide show, there's hand-holding, and face-touching, hugs and singing and smiles on not just the faces of the healthy, but on those of the ill. There are no gloves, no gowns, no bits of minute physical distance to separate the dying from the sick from the healthy at the convent, in no small part because they don't believe that those things help cushion one's death as much as they hurt the sense of still belonging to the world that the nuns think they need at the end of their lives. Let's hope McCann and the nuns he treats can find a way to make that exportable.

Sisters Face Death With Dignity and Reverence [NY Times]
A Gentle Death [NY Times]

[Vatican City; July 8. Image via Getty]

Nuns wave to Pope Benedict XVI (not pictured) during his weekly general audience on July 8, 2009 at Paul VI hall at The Vatican. The pontiff called the day before and on the eve of a G8 summit in L'Aquila, for a new world body 'with real teeth' to restore the global economy and prevent further disparities in a letter to Roman Catholics worldwide. AFP PHOTO / VINCENZO PINTO (Photo credit should read VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)

[Vatican City, July 1. Image via Getty]

Nuns wait for the weekly general audience of Pope Benedict XVI on July 1, 2009 at St Peter's square at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI will release a social encyclical on July 7, 'Caritas in Veritae' (Charity in thruth). AFP PHOTO / CHRISTOPHE SIMON (Photo credit should read CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty Images)

Mary Ward, an English Catholic, joined the Poor Clare order of Franciscans at 15. But frustrated by the rigidity of the order, in 1609 she founded her own order at St. Omer. While most nuns were strictly cloistered and limited in their outside activity - by Church decree - Ward's was based on action: like the Jesuits, her order would be devoted to educating women and preserving the Catholic faith in Protestant England. She encouraged her nuns to abandon their habits and go amongst the poor. Oddly enough, one of ward's big issues was the theatre: she was aggressive in challenging the notion that women couldn't appear on the stage, and that those who were warranted scorn.

Although this was the height of the Inquisition, and progressive thinkers were being accused of heresy right and left, such was Ward's confidence in the Church that in 1631, Ward walked from Belgium to Rome to ask Pope Urban VIII for official recognition of her order. The Pope jailed ward and issued a Papal bull declaring that her order be disbanded. And, after a year in prison, Ward obeyed this edict, dissolving her revolutionary order and returning to England, where she died in the siege of York. Although something of an icon to English nuns, Ward remained persona non grata in the church until the 19th century, when a French nun's petition helped convince Pope Piux X that the case against her was unfounded. Pope Pius XI, opened Ward's cause for sainthood in 1932, and the Jesuit lobbying for the cause says that she will probably be named a "Venerable" (two rungs below sainthood) on the recommendation a panel of Vatican theologians within the next year.

Says a member of Ward's order, now known as the Congregation of Jesus and made up of 4,000 sisters, "She had a vision of the equality of men and women before God and a vision of the capacity of women to do good and to work for the kingdom of God...She had this at a time when universities were still discussing whether women had souls."

It should perhaps be noted that Dorothy Day, another firebrand whose adherents are pushing for canonization - controversial because of a history of civil disobedience, criticism of the Church and political action - was an admirer of Mary Ward, taking the title of her famous autobiography The Long Loneliness from a Ward epigraph. Both women are emblematic of a deep traditional faith interpreted according to conscience. And while recognition of Ward would, in 2009, hardly qualify as a revolutionary act, it would be one of good faith, long overdue.

The First Sister Of Feminism [Independent]
Mary Ward: Pioneer For Women In The Church [IBVM]
Mary Ward [Catholic Encyclopedia]
Mary Ward, Pilgrim and Mystic [Google Books]

• Church historian Mary Rubin argues in her new book that over the years, the image of the Virgin Mary has drastically changed. Although Mary was initially depicted as a "figure of immense solemnity," in the 11th and 12th century there was "an attempt to make Mary into the mother next door, not just the mother of Jesus in heaven, who cooks and does everything that mothers do." • After surviving an accident that killed her father, a brave 7-year-old drove the family's damaged car several miles to get help. Police say that alcohol was likely a factor in the crash. • Canadian prosecutors have dropped charges of attempted murder against a U.S. man believed to be involved in the slaying of several abortion doctors. James Kopp is currently serving a life sentence, plus 10 years, for the 1998 fatal shooting of a doctor who ran an abortion clinic. • Divorce lawyers and private detectives agree: GPS is a great tool for catching cheating spouses. • A new documentary, Pressure Cooker follows several high school students as they take high-stress cooking classes to prepare for the Culinary Institute of America scholarship competition. Top Chef meets The Paper? • Former tennis prodigy Andrea Jaeger has joined the ranks of the Anglican Dominican nuns. As a child, Jaeger was scarred by both the instability of her life and her distant, abusive father, and she hopes that today's child stars will be better nurtured and protected. •  City officials in Karachi, Pakistan cite the rising influence of the Taliban as the primary reason women are experiencing an increase in violence and harassment. • An Italian bride made it through her ceremony only to run off at the reception with the driver. She claimed that she had to change clothes, but once she left, she had her new lover call her husband. Her husband is now seeking to file charges. • Horrible person Drew Peterson called into a radio show this morning to try out a few of his brand new prison jokes. We're not laughing. •  A "feral" child has been found in Russia living with her parents and grandparents in the Siberian city of Chita. The 5-year-old girl was never allowed out, and never learned to speak. She lived for years in a room with several dogs and cats, and thus reportedly communicates by barking. • New research illustrates the significance of coloring in gender identification. If the skin around the eyes and mouth are reddish in hue, than the face is more likely to be identified as male. If it is greener, the face is seen as female. • A 27-year-old incarcerated man has plead not guilty in the murder of Chandra Levy. •  A 32-year-old religious school teacher from Miami has been charged with sexual battery on a child after she admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old student. When police arrived at her house to question her, she was unavailable, due to the fact that she had gone on vacation in Disneyland with the student. • 

[Bethlehem, May 13. Image via Getty]

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - MAY 13: A Catholic nun raises her arms to undergo a security check at the entrance to Manger Square before the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI to the city of Jesus' birth on May 13, 2009 in Bethlehem, West Bank. During his visit marred by controversy over his wartime past as a member of the Nazi's Hitler Youth, the Pontiff called for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would lead to a homeland for both sides. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

•  A recent survey has named "To Kill a Mockingbird" the most inspirational book of all time, beating out the Bible, which came in at number two. • Click here to watch an awesome video of a fox tracking mice in the snow. •  British women are more likely to have a baby before the age of 25 than they are to get married, according to a new report. • At the end of WWII, an estimated 2 million German women were raped by Russian soldiers. For decades, the suffering of German women was considered taboo, and it is only now that the first scientific study of the rapes is being conducted. • Researchers have found that women who sit up, walk, or kneel at the first signs of going into labor are likely to have a quicker labor than those who are in a reclining position. •  Ugh. A 20-year-old student from Colorado is facing felony animal abuse charges after she taped her boyfriend's eight-month-old puppy to the inside of his refrigerator. •  Aw: a widow in Japan has published a book full of text messages that she sent to her dead husbands phone. • Freakonomics compares ballet dancer's amazing leg lifts to basketball player's free-throw shooting. • Mental Floss has unearthed a very old clip of Bill O'Reilly reporting on Super Mario Bros. •  Some reasonable legislators in Vermont are working to reduce teen "sexting" charges so that high school students wont be charged with child porn for sending pictures of themselves via text message. •  eMarketer has found that way more women use the internet than men, but men visit more sites and stay online longer. • Outside Los Angeles, an order of nuns are praying for a new oven. The Dominican nuns are suffering from the recession, and without their funds brought in from sales of their pumpkin bread, times are even tougher. • Some very bored guy invented a chair that twitters his farts. If you are so inclined, you can follow his tweets here. • Just what the dying world of print journalism needs: Pumpsmag, a rag devoted entirely to gentleman's clubs and the women who work there. •

Now, the order numbers only a hundred nuns, but according to sisters Sisters Virginie Fish and Marcia Hall, a former academic, (interviewed by NPR's Michel Martin) it's still a rich and fulfilling life. The Oblates, who were founded by Mother Mary Lange, a Haitian nun, was an integrated order from inception, and dedicated to good works. Says sister Virginie, who joined the order right out of high school 63 years ago, "We are ordinary women trying to live an extraordinary lifestyle because it it what we feel God is asking of us." Of the order's dwindling numbers she declares, "Jesus had twelve apostles...look what he did with twelve unlikely, uneducated men!" [NPR]

MOE: Ohhhhh mann, I'm still like on Seattle time or something
MEGAN: I'm on "got home at midnight after an 8 hour drive" fog.
MOE: What should we talk about? Yikes!
MEGAN: Oh, see, I was going to suggest that we talk about how Alaskan Republican Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens was indicted on 7 counts yesterday, but fetish hookers is way more prurient. Also, rumors around the courts here in D.C. is that touchy-feely ass-grabbing Congressman Don Young is next. Actually, that's just been the rumor for a while, but doesn't it sound cooler when I semi-source it?
MOE: Isn't just the fact that Alaska has two senators corruption in itself?
MEGAN: Well, they do have a whole 100,000 more people than Washington, DC, so of course they deserve 2 Senators and a Congressman and D.C. shouldn't get either.
Geek moment: Did you know that there are more people in Hawai'i than Alaska? Like, almost twice as many.
MOE: Yes. Does that surprise you? Any more than, like, this? Oh god I need coffee.
MEGAN: Back to Stevens, the most hilarious thing of all is that they couldn't charge him with bribery because sometimes he just took the lavish gifts from Veco and told them to fuck off! It's sort of like how Congressmen and Senators feel about campaign contributions only flashier (now including a Land Rover and a Viking Grill!).
As a white resident of upstate New York, I particularly like this statement of Sharpton's:

"We have all made mistakes. We have all erred, and we ought not try to sugar coat when we err."

Oh, really, Al?
MOE: The Ted Stevens thing reminds me of when I used to cover Nike for the Journal, and the guys from SLAM just couldn't figure out why I wasn't allowed to take free shoes. "Sure, it's bribery, but when EVERYONE bribes you you're still objective!"
MEGAN: "As long as you 'slam' them later," right? (Apologies for the bad but necessary pun).Speaking of apologies...
MOE: Jesus this totally makes the AMA's timing look COMPLETELY NORMAL!

In February, the Senate apologized for atrocities committed against Native Americans, and the body apologized in 2005 for standing by during a lynching campaign against African Americans throughout much of the past century. Twenty years ago, Congress apologized for interning Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II.

MEGAN: Well, you know, they're really, really worried about reparations. That's, like, a completely legitimate concern.
MOE: As I'm sure is the fact that there is a lot in those Jim Crow laws some Americans still would like to resurrect! Sorry, that's a year old, but I didn't remember it until today.
MEGAN: Luckily for Jonah and at the behest of plenty of Republican state governments, states are passing government-ID laws to make it more difficult for people to vote, especially poor people. You heard, right, that the first people fucked over by that law were a bunch of nuns and students? But it was the Democratic primary, so that was the intention, anyway, to keep Democrats from voting, so hooray Indiana for designing a law that actually works as it was intended. Sort of hooray. More like, um, FUCK YOU Mitch Daniels. Cialis was marketed under his tenure at Lilly, by the way. You knew he was a pharmaceutical company exec before he was OMB Director before he was Governor of Indiana, right?
MOE: Uh no but doesn't that just make this world make a little more sense! That and this guy. Um I just blew some of my literacy reading this. Also, is it just me or is it surprising that nuns of all people would not have their IDs ready? I know they probably don't get carded too often, but isn't it in the nun personality type?
MEGAN: But why would they need an ID? And, yes, OMG, can we please, please, please stop dumbing Michelle Obama down so that people think she's more like them? Please? It makes my brain hurty. Oh, and did you see that the International Olympics Committee negotiated a secret deal with the Chinese to limit journalists' internet access?
MOE: God everytime I think I know how full of shitheads the IOC is I am proved wrong. Who are these IOC officials anyway? Hey, maybe there's a job for Mitt Romney!
MEGAN: Someone's got to give him on eventually if McCain won't. His hair is too bulletproof to retire.
MOE: So $15,000 a month is Rielle Hunter's hush money . I feel like we should do a poll on how much you'd ask if you'd been knocked up by a filthy rich presidential candidate. I think fifteen grand is good, because there's not a whole lot an unimaginative person like myself can't do on that money, but it's not so disgusting people will question her genuine love for the bastard. But hey, where's the "real father" Andrew Young in all of this?
MEGAN:Apparently, getting paid off by the same middleman! That's $180,000 a year, or, if it continues at the same rate, $3.24 million over the next 18, not including tuition. I don't think I'll make $3 million in the next 18 years. Also, can we just discuss how exactly the Enquirer knew that Rielle was in the hotel, whose name she checked in under and when Edwards would show? Because between that and the news that she's negotiating a paid interview, I don't think the "hush" part of the money is working.

They called the thing a "habit" for a reason. We all have them: I buy all my clothes at American Apparel despite a general unease with the institution's values; if I could I'd go back to wearing a Catholic school uniform despite unease with the institution's values. The biggest community of hijab-wearers I ever met worked with me at the phone sex call center, where I would regularly watch one habitually fiddle with her scarves as she regaled clients with detailed descriptions of her denim miniskirt and red lace thong and horny San Fernando Valley cheerleading squad's locker room antics.

Obviously, one cannot bear witness to such a spectacle and emerge without entertaining thought: "God I love this country." Which is, seven years on in this dumb Terror War, what makes this headscarf thing so infuriating: where K-Mart is free to peddle track pants that advertise abstinence from sex on their asses and the Secretary of State can don boots that look swiped from an S&M dungeon and pop culture celebrates bearded cross dressers…what does anyone give a shit about headscarves for? Where the perpetuation of conformity and envy is still the primary role of fashion, a lot more civilians will die at the hands of those who covet their Nikes than those who hate their "freedom" to wear them.

Muslims Barred From Picture At Obama Event [Politico]
How I Nearly Lost My Business After Refusing To Hire A Muslim Hair Stylist Who Wouldn't Show Her Hair [Daily Mail]

• Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather accuses his old network of "tarting up" its broadcast. And yes, he was referring to Katie Couric. [Yahoo]
  
• Egypt has issued a fatwa declaring that unmarried men can work alongside women if the women breast-feed their colleagues five times "to establish family ties". Don't even ask us about the "urine" fatwa. [NYTimes]
  
• In addition to making single Egyptian men happy, breast-feeding may also reduce sleep apnea among babies. [ABCNews]
  
• Nuns: Not just for beating up on kids in Catholic school anymore! Apparently hundreds of our dear Sisters are submitting their bodies to medical researchers. [ABCNews]
  
• Male chauvinist pigs: Caught on film! [Feministing]
  
• Just what the world needs: More screaming kids! There's a boom in sextuplets and we're not happy. [CNN]