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Posted on 07/17/2026 2:28:35 PM PDT by CedarDave
Billy the Kid continues to make headlines, 145 years after being gunned down in Fort Sumner.
Thursday historians announced new evidence that he was Catholic — a detail that adds more layers of intrigue to one of the Wild West’s mythologized figures. Billy the Kid died July 14, 1881, after being shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett.
On the first day of the Wild West History Association Roundup, Allen Sanchez said certificates of Billy the Kid’s baptism and his parents’ marriage were located inside St. Peter’s Church in New York City. St. Peter’s is connected to the Sisters of Charity ...
It was with this order that Sister Blandina Segale served and helped start hospitals in Santa Fe and Albuquerque ...
“(Finding the certificates) means he had some religious formation and that has an effect on how people live their lives,” Sanchez said after his presentation. “And it kind of gives clues to Billy’s loyalty to people, which is kind of what got him in trouble.”
The certificates were uncovered during research to canonize Segale, whom some called the “Fastest Nun in the West.” In May, Vatican theologians voted to advance her sainthood cause, said Sanchez, a petitioner for the cause of canonization.
Maria Rosa Segale was born on Jan. 23, 1850, in Cicagna, Italy. Her family migrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was 4 years old. In 1866, she entered the Sisters of Charity before being sent to work out West six years later ...
In Trinidad, Colorado, Segale reportedly met Billy the Kid, also known as Henry McCarty.
In her diary, “At The End of the Santa Fe Trail,” Segale described Billy as having “steel-blue eyes,” and being “innocent looking, save for the corners of his eyes, which tell a set purpose, good or bad.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
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He was Irish Catholic.
The Catholic/Anglican fight was a big part of the Lincoln County war.
Didn’t know this wasn’t well known already.
Are there a lot of people who were wondering about Billy the Kid’s personal faith? The thought never crossed my mind. but then, I am not a historian or researcher.
Since the Catholics sent so many missionaries out into the west, most of the Indians that became Christians were Catholic. In Oklahoma, there were many Indian Schools, including the one that Jim Thorpe went to that were started as Catholic Boys and Girls Schools, or Orphanages. In many ways, they opened the west for the rest of the U.S., including Jewish Traders, who set up Trading Posts before the US Forts were built, that were among the first white men to come there.
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Yeah, me too.
Wasn’t he the one who loaded his coach gun with rolls of shaved dimes?
I can’t read the article, did he remain a Catholic or what?
Just saw where Ruidoso is flooding 🙏🏼🙏🏼
“The Catholic/Anglican fight was a big part of the Lincoln County war. “
Grew up in the southwest. Been to Lincoln county, never knew it was a religion played a role in the war, just greed.
Billy the Kid addressed her as “sister” then added that “it would give me pleasure to be able to do you any favor.”
Segale asked the outlaw to cancel plans “to scalp our Trinidad physicians,” which he agreed to do.
She said he added, “Not only that, Sister, but at any time my pals and I can serve you, you will find us ready.”
Sanchez said Segale’s interactions with Billy the Kid were verified by members of the historical commission for the canonization inquiry.
Nice to a nun.
thanks
pur neighbor observes that at least “Billy the Kid” was oriented to female companionship (Paulita Maxwell in New Mexico, daughter of Lucien Maxwell of a very large landowner family)...and was asleep at night in the Maxwell house when sheriff Pat Garrett snuck in (or perhaps was let in by Paulita’s brother Pete?) and ambushed “Billy” (born: Henry McCarty) when Billy was walking into a room.
Paulita. not sheep. not boys. not camels so far as we are told, anyway.
I guess he was just a hopeless hetero white male settler who wouldn’t stand a chance of getting hired in today’s DEI racist sexist employment market
then again, the Maxwells he was possibly planning to marry into (though Paulita’s reported pregnancy by him appears to have not been the case, he was staying with them in their Fort Sumner, New Mexico hacienda)....the Maxwell family land claims were massive — he could have maybe bought out all the banks instead of, well, withdrawing funds from them?
We’re fine.
It was greed: But it lined up along Catholic vs Protestant.
I am from Lincoln County. Indeed I live there. My wife is Apache.
I am a literal descendant of a member of Billy’s gang.
That sounds like a 1960s TV show. A great opportunity for Sally Field.
I don't care if Billy the Kid was a woman.
He/she was no saint.
Billy the Kid worked for the Protestant.
Who ever said he wasn’t Catholic.
He was Irish Catholic born in New York City.
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