Sister Antonia
Brenner, the daughter of Irish immigrants, gave up her life in Beverly
Hills to become a nun and serve prisoners in Mexico.
Daughter of Irish emigrants Sister Antonia Brenner dies at 86
Sister Antonia Brenner, the daughter of
Irish immigrants who gave up a plush life in Beverly Hills to become a
nun and serve prisoners in Mexico, has died at 86.
Brenner, who had been suffering from a weak heart and neuromuscular condition, died in the convent she founded in Mexico
Sister
Brenner made headlines three decades ago when she made the decision to
walk away from her beachfront home on the California coast and tend to
prisoners in Tijuana, Mexico, after becoming a nun at age 50.
She was born Mary Clarke in 1926 to Irish immigrants. She married and divorced twice and had seven children.
She made her first trip to La Mesa State Penitentiary in 1965 to deliver medical supplies, reports Yahoo Shine.
"Something
happened to me when I saw men behind bars," Brenner told the Los
Angeles Times in a 1982 interview. "When I left, I thought a lot about
the men. When it was cold, I wondered if the men were warm; when it was
raining, if they had shelter. I wondered if they had medicine and how
their families were doing. ... You know, when I returned to the prison
to live, I felt as if I'd come home."
Brenner
gave away her possessions and became a Roman Catholic nun in 1977. She
moved into the Mexican prison, living in a concrete 10-by-10 room and
sleeping on a cot.
"I'm the mother of seven children," she said in a 2002 interview. "I'm prepared for everything."
Brenner,
who became known as the "prison angel," kept in touch with her family,
making frequent trip back to Southern California.
"There
isn't anyone who hasn't heard my lecture on victims," she told the
Times. "They have to accept that they're wrong. They have to see the
consequences. They have to feel the agony. ... But I do love them
dearly."
Brenner eventually started her
own religious community, the Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour. She
lived there until her death on October 17.
She is survived by seven children and 45 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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