‘Dean’ Regina’s life of service lauded
Former nun, retired judge earns Pope Francis Award
Regina Quinlan Doherty was a nun for nearly a decade.
She left the convent and become a lawyer who defended adult bookstores in Boston’s old Combat Zone. Then, she spent two decades as a judge before getting married for the first time at age 75.
While a lot has changed for Regina over the years, her drive to help others, her strong faith and her commitment to St. Anthony Shrine has never wavered.
So it’s only fitting that Regina, now a lively 76, will be the first woman to receive the shrine’s Pope Francis Award, a prestigious honor given to a person much like St. Francis of Assisi, who helped the downand-out. Regina will be honored tonight at the shrine’s annual fundraising gala at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.
“I love Francis and it’s humbling to have my name mentioned in the same sentence as his. They’ve always respected women here,” said Regina. “The women here are the backbone of the place.”
Regina is adored by the shrine’s friars. She’s known as the “dean” of the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass. “Regina is bigger than life,” said the Rev. Thomas Conway, the shrine’s executive director.
Most importantly, Regina understands and embraces the shrine’s work. The shrine is a Catholic church with an LGBT ministry, which can be hard for some people to wrap their heads around, said Conway. But not for Regina. “She completely gets us in a really profound way,” said Conway. “She’s beloved by the community.”
Regina recently married Gerard Doherty, 90, a former political adviser to the Kennedy family. Their wedding was a big and beautiful celebration attended by Mayor Marty Walsh and Sen. Ed Markey.
Regina, who grew up in Brighton, entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston after a year at Regis College. “It was a generation that wanted to change the world,” she recalled. “I know I had a vocation. It just wasn’t forever.”
She entered the convent in 1961, where she finished college and lived with many other bright women. “Dinner conversation was Buber and Kierkegaard. It was a very exciting time,” said Regina. “All of the power figures within it were women. You had no sense there wasn’t anything you couldn’t do except maybe say Mass.”
She left the nunnery in 1969.
“I think I, like many, felt that it was time to leave to see if you could live the values that had been inculcated in you in an atmosphere where everybody didn’t read the same books and believe the same thing,” she said.
She taught math while going to Suffolk Law School at night to become a lawyer. A fellow attorney asked her if she wanted some clients — and the former nun became a regular at Boston Municipal Court with her “dirty” book and movie cases.
One adult bookstore invited Regina to a Christmas party. She went. “The rule was, until the nun leaves, behave yourself,” she said. “They treated me with respect.”
Regina was appointed to the state’s Superior Court in 1992. “I saw the best of it and the worst of it,” she said of her two decades as a judge. “Loved every minute of it.”
For years, Regina volunteered serving meals at Rosie’s Place.
“I don’t know anyone who lives the life of St. Francis more than her,” said retired Superior Court Judge Chris Muse, a close friend who plans to emcee tonight’s gala. “She will extend respect, kindness and support to everyone that she meets.”
The shrine, Muse said, has always been Regina’s anchor. “The friars love Regina,” Conway said, “because Regina will tell me off. I kind of do have to do what she tells me to do.”
Take the display of nun figures in the shrine’s lobby. Regina bought the display case and told Conway to put it in the lobby. “So that case,” Conway told me with a laugh, “is in the lobby.”