Irish nun who inspired Cardinal Timothy Dolan thought she’d never see the day - VIDEO

“I didn’t think I’d ever live to see him Cardinal’ says Sister Bosco Daly

By: JAMES O'BRIEN | Published Monday, February 20, 2012, 7:05 AM | Updated Monday, February 20, 2012, 10:59 AM

Cardinal Timothy Dolan's second grade teacher, Sister Bosco Daly from Ireland, was front and center at his official installment as Cardinal in Rome.

Dolan had said prior to the event. "She's a spiritual mother to me."

Sister Bosco, a Mercy nun based in Drogheda, Co Louth, has known Archbishop Dolan, 61, since he did his First Communion.

"I was there for his Communion, his Confirmation, his ordination as a priest at Holy Infant in Baldwin in 1976, and his first Mass," she said.

“I didn’t think I’d ever live to see him cardinal,” said Daly.

Sr Bosco was sent to Ballwin, Missouri in 1957 with a group of other Irish nuns to get a Catholic school up and running. It was there that she and the other sisters quickly became acquainted with the young Dolan, "a bright sweet boy." The Drogheda nun taught Dolan in his second, fourth and fifth grade classes.

Sr Bosco, 87, who spoke to IrishCentral.com from her convent in Ireland, has been a mentor and a friend to the newly elected archbishop since his childhood.

"I began teaching Tim at the Holy Infant Grade School in Ballwin when he was making his Holy Communion," said Sr Bosco. "His family, you see, belonged to the parish in the area."

Born in 1950, the oldest of five children to Robert and Shirley Dolan, Dolan's education began at Sr Bosco's Holy Infant Grade School. "Tim was always very grateful to the nuns who taught him," said Sr Bosco. "I kept in contact with Tim throughout the process of him wanting to become a priest."

Dolan, under Sr Bosco’s guidance, attended St. Louis Preparatory Seminary. He then went onto Cardinal Glennon College in Missouri, and then attended the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

She was there when he was chosen as Archbishop of New York. "Yes, Tim said to me on the phone when he called to say he had been chosen as the New York archbishop that he wanted to see me in the first pew of St. Patrick's Cathedral," she said. Sr Bosco, who returned to Ireland in 1979 to become mother superior in a convent in Drogheda, spent a week with Dolan in Milwaukee four years ago. "I had a great week. Tim brought me everywhere, he was just wonderful," said Daly. At the time of her visit, Dolan was already serving Milwaukee as archbishop, a position he received in 2002.

Here's the KSDK report: