Irish nun delivered Pope Francis at his home in Argentina

Sr Oliva Maria, born Susan Cusack, with family members in Crosserlough, Co Cavan, in 1963.

An Irish nun and midwife delivered an infant Pope Francis at home in Argentina, an expert in the world of Irish missionaries has discovered. 

Sr Oliva Maria, formerly Susan Cusack, trained as a nurse and midwife in Paris with the Little Sisters of the Assumption from 1909 onwards.

The daughter of a small farmer left Ireland aged 20 to train, and could little know that among the many babies she would deliver as a missionary nun, one would be the future Pope Francis.

She was sent to Argentina in 1923 where the order worked with the poor, including health and maternity care. 

In December 1936, a family approached the nuns in Flores for help with the birth of their first son. José Bergoglio and Regina Maria Sivori were Italian immigrants to the city.

The nuns’ records show Sr Oliva Maria was sent. She spent a week with the family around the birth of Jorge Mario — now better known as Pope Francis.

Matt Moran, former chairman of Misean Cara, a charity which supports missionaries, was fascinated to discover her life-story.

“(The pope’s) parents sought help, they went to the nuns and they were seen as a support or help that could be trusted,” he said.

He never forgot that, and the work they were doing possibly left an impression on him, in terms of caring for the poor and the marginalised.

The records indicated, he said, “Sr Oliva was the nun who went down and delivered him, and stayed for a week and looked after the situation".

He also discovered she was a nurse and midwife, trained in Paris.

Mr Moran has spoken with her family from Cavan. Her niece remembered her visiting twice, including in 1963.

“Her niece remembers her, when she was a very small girl in her father’s arms outside the parish church in Kilnaleck, at Christmas mass and the snow on the ground,” he said.

“She said to me: ‘I remember her in all her black garb’. She could just see her face with the white cloth all around.” 

Sr Oliva Maria left Ireland aged 20 to train, and could little know that among the many babies she would deliver as a missionary nun, one would be the future Pope Francis

He said this would have been a unique sighting for a young person in Kilnaleck, Co Cavan, because there were no nuns nearby.

The family were unaware until then they had this unusual connection to Pope Francis.

“They were really interested, and how did this come about. They were absolutely thrilled for this story to be dug up,” he said.

He was set on the trail by Fr Dermod McCarthy during the televised papal mass in Phoenix Park in 2018.

“He mentioned in passing about a Cavan nun who nursed Pope Francis when he was a baby,” Mr Moran recalled on Tuesday.

Having recently published a book The legacy of Irish missionaries lives on, Mr Moran thought this was worth investigating.

Now living in Cork, he started at the Little Sisters of the Assumption house in Blackpool.

Armed with a short mention to Sr Oliva he found in a Cavan local history book, the nuns identified records in France and Argentina.

“They gave me the full low-down on exactly when she joined, what age she was, who her parents were, where she did this course or that course, where she was professed and how she moved around Argentina,” he said.

Sr Oliva Maria was born in January 1889 to Philip and Ellen Cusack in the parish of Crosserlough. 

As a young girl, she lived on the farm with her three sisters and two brothers and went to St Mary’s National School. She worked in different areas of Argentina, before spending her last years near Buenos Aires. She died aged 86 in October 1975.