MIDTOWN MANHATTAN — Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, founder of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, was not one to take “no” for an answer.

When she was a teenager, she joined the Holy Cross Sisters over her family’s objections. And when she expressed a desire to start a new community of sisters, she faced pushback. She ultimately persevered and established the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.

Now, someone has said “yes” to Mother Mary.

The sisters of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate are celebrating after Pope Leo XIV declared Mother Mary venerable on June 18 — a crucial step to becoming a saint.

Mother Maria Iannotti, the general superior and the vice postulator for the canonization cause, said the sisters are overjoyed.

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On June 18, Mother Maria saw the announcement of the Vatican’s website.

“I looked at my phone, and there was a slew of congratulatory messages,” she recalled. “I went into the chapel and said, ‘Ring the bell. Mother’s venerable. She’s venerable!’

“The sisters were all so excited. It was just so beautiful.”

The venerable designation means the Vatican recognizes that a person is worthy of consideration for sainthood. If a miracle attributed to the person’s intercession can be verified, the person will be beatified — the next–to-last step before sainthood. Once beatification takes place, a second miracle must be verified. If it is, then canonization takes place.

Mother Mary Teresa Tallon (1867-1954) was born in upstate New York to Bridget and Peter Tallon, Irish immigrants, and was the seventh of eight children.

At the age of 19, she joined the Holy Cross Sisters of South Bend, Indiana, even though her family did not want her to enter religious life, Sister Maria said. She served with the sisters for 33 years, teaching in Catholic schools.

She noticed that when children were truants, it was usually because of family problems at home, and that, in many cases, the parents had stopped attending Mass. So, she reached out to parents to bring them back to church, said Mother Maria, who researched Mother Mary’s life and wrote a detailed history as part of the canonization process.

“It was her desire, really, to get to the family through the child,” Mother Maria said. “It was her goal to make everyone holy.”

At one point, she moved to New York City and taught in Catholic schools. Her duties prevented her from making home visits as often as she liked, so she would organize a group of women to do so.

“Those five or six women that she trained became the pioneer sisters of our community,” Mother Maira explained.

In 1908, Mother Mary heard a call from God to establish a new community of sisters “to go out and bring back the lost sheep,” Mother Maria said.

However, when she approached her superiors with the idea, “they were less than kind,” Mother Maria noted. There were several priests who were supportive, “but every time she made a step forward, she was put a few steps back,” she added.

Finally, in 1920, she was granted permission to establish the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate. The religious community’s motherhouse is in Monroe, New York (located in the Archdiocese of New York) and is dedicated to the contemplative life, religious instruction, and visiting with families.

Mother Mary, who died in 1954, is buried on the grounds of the motherhouse.

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At the request of the sisters, Cardinal Timothy Dolan opened the cause for canonization in 2013. Mother Maria and other supporters got to work investigating Mother Mary’s life — examining her writings and interviewing witnesses who were old enough to have known her — to prove that she is worthy of sainthood.

“We talked to sisters who knew Mother well. We also talked to a couple of Mother’s great-grandnephews who met her when they were little boys. They were altar boys at her funeral,” Mother Maria said.

“Once you finish getting the testimony from witnesses and the history, you have to put it all together. It’s a lot of paperwork,” Mother Maria explained.

The postulators completed their task and presented the Vatican with 16,000 pages of material.

Pope Leo XIV’s declaration was a dream come true for the sisters who carry on her work.

“We are hopeful that Mother will be a saint,” Mother Maria said.