If you passed Georgianna Glose on the streets of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, you might have known her as that renegade nun, the one who left her convent to live among the poor and then blew a whistle on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Sister Glose died on April 28 at Brooklyn Hospital Center from complications of the new coronavirus, said her sister, Kathrine Dawson.
“If someone was misbehaving, especially a man in a position of power, she would say calmly and completely accurately, ‘That man is a horse’s ass,’” said Teresa Theophano, a social worker who interned with Sister Glose at her nonprofit, Fort Greene Strategic Neighborhood Action Partnership.
“She would never give in,” said Sister Sally Butler, who lived with Sister Glose for 51 years, serving in the same Roman Catholic order, the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville, N.Y.
Georgianna Inez Glose was born on Dec. 1, 1946, to Helen and Rudolph Glose, the descendants of Slovak immigrants who lived in Astoria, Queens, and worked as superintendents of an apartment building.
She left her convent in 1969 for Fort Greene, joining Sister Butler and a third nun to serve with the priests of St. Michaels-St.