Ten Favorites

Jeffrey Tucker at Lew Rockwell wrote an entertaining column about the ten people he'd like to meet. A list that includes Ludwig von Mises, St. Cecilia, and Bette Davis is worth consulting. Link. Excerpt:

Mother Cabrini (1850”“1917). Shorter than 5 feet and always dressed in her habit, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was one of the great entrepreneurs of the 19th century, the Bill Gates of charitable work of her time. From her earliest days she had wild ambitions to be a missionary to the world's poor, starting in China. Instead, the pope sent her to the United States. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Poor, but this was resisted on grounds that women can't be missionaries. She wrote to Rome: "If the mission of announcing the Lord's resurrection to his apostles had been entrusted to Mary Magdalene, it would seem a very good thing to confide to other women an evangelizing mission." Well, what could Rome do but agree? And so it seemed throughout her life. She overcame resistance everywhere she went and eventually created a vast network of hundreds of orphanages, schools, and hospitals in the North East, the South, and even the far West. She was both worldly and holy, an amazing businesswoman and pious saint. Her business sense was particularly shrewd: she was once donated some gold mines in Colorado but rather than sell them she sent some sisters there to run them properly.