VISALIA, Calif. — No place in California, save for the borderlands of Imperial, is poorer than this place. Like the fields, despair runs clear to the horizon.
So it comes as no surprise that residents approach the cluster of buildings on the north side of Visalia -- a refuge known as the Good News Center -- as if it were hallowed ground. For years, a small relentless nun with the unusual name of Sister Kenneth Quinn has performed what the down-and-out here consider miracles.
The center, built by the sister and a community of patrons and staffed by a small army of employees and volunteers, is a one-stop mall for the afflicted. Here, the hungry are fed, the tattered are clothed, the sick are mended, the aggrieved are given a lawyer and the homeless provided a bed.
Visalia nun -- In Tuesday's California section, a photo caption accompanying an article on a Visalia nun misspelled the names of Kyle Nudson and his son Matthew as Nudsen and Mathew.
Residents have long wondered what life would be like when the sister passed away. They had promised to carry on in her name and continue the mission of the local Daughters of Charity Order. What they never imagined is that the woman regarded as the "Mother Teresa of the San Joaquin Valley," alive and kicking at age 65, would be booted from the very place she built.
And yet it happened this summer, in the heat of a tiff with Bishop John T. Steinbock, head of the Diocese of Fresno.
After years of taking a hands-off approach to the Good News Center, Bishop Steinbock decided to change course a few weeks ago. Steinbock and the local Catholic Charities demanded a say-so in the center's budget, a level of oversight that the sister found demeaning.
She has now packed her belongings and left the center for good, declaring that her vow of obedience gives her no choice but to accept the bishop's decision to fire her.
But the community of Visalia has taken no such vow. In the last week, many staff and volunteers have decided to follow her out the door, throwing the future of the center -- the only place of its kind in this sprawling farm belt -- in doubt.
"This whole thing is about politics, and the sister has no patience for politics," said Pete Moreno, the center's maintenance man and driver. "We had a good thing going and, like they say, 'If it isn't broke, why fix it?'
"Now everything's gone crazy and a lot of us are quitting. She asked us not to, but how can we stay?"
Before she left, Sister Kenneth made one final try at holding on. She proposed to cut the center's last ties to Catholic Charities and cast its lot with the western headquarters of the Daughters of Charity. The bishop, though, refused to give up the reins.
