ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (CNS) – The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has received permission from the Vatican to open a sainthood cause for a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati who ministered to people on the frontier in the Southwest in the 1870s and 1880s.

Italian-born Sister Blandina Segale worked with the poor and with immigrants more than 140 years ago.

She also had several encounters with the notorious Billy the Kid and his band of outlaws, according to her published letters.

It is the first time in the more than 400-year history of the Catholic Church in New Mexico that a decree for a canonization cause has been issued.

One story about her ministry in Colorado claims she intervened to stop Billy the Kid from murdering four doctors because they had refused to treat his friend’s gunshot wound. She nursed the friend back to health. Another account says Billy the Kid noticed Sister Blandina nearby when he was about to rob a covered wagon and he called off the attack.

Another time she saved a man from a lynching party. That was related in an episode titled “The Fastest Nun in the West” of the popular TV series “Death Valley Days.”