Sister Debra Sciano is not only the provincial leader for the School Sisters of Notre Dame, but she also spent years working in the District Attorney’s office. What’s it like being a nun in the 21st century? Sister Debra Sciano joins WTMJ’s Libby Collins to discuss balancing her duties to the church with her life as a lawyer, the increasing age of nuns, and much more on this candid edition of WTMJ Conversations. Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: You were working as an advocate for the court.
SISTER DEBRA SCIANO: Yes.
LIBBY COLLINS: Obviously, you’ve got criminal offenders, how did you balance that in terms of your advocacy for what the law is and the vows you had taken to help others and to do God’s work?
SISTER DEBRA SCIANO: It was always about the best interest of the children, that was number one. So, I think that made it easy. I always just believed that to bring people together is our mission. I try bringing people together, try to have people understand why it’s important to care for the children and love them. And I just felt there were other ways rather than going to trial and things like that.
LIBBY COLLINS: But you had to be dealing with some pretty bad people.
SISTER DEBRA SCIANO: Yes.
LIBBY COLLINS: Did you ever feel threatened?
SISTER DEBRA SCIANO: Yes, I absolutely did. There were times where my life was threatened, that there were people that didn’t like the fact, of course, that we removed the children from the home. Even in court, I had one situation where somebody actually threatened to kill me when we were in the courtroom. It was not easy.
