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Browse This Issue: December 10th, 2009

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The Rehab Wars
Can a radical nun and a house full of junkies save Philadelphia from drug addiction?
by Isaiah Thompson
At the heart of New Jerusalem is its unlikely founder and director, Sister Margaret McKenna —"Sister Margaret," as she's known. Seventy-nine years old, with a penchant for knitted sweaters and a warm, grandmotherly voice that erupts occasionally into disarming cackles, "radical" might not be the first word you'd use to describe her. But Sister Margaret, a member of the order of Medical Mission Sisters for more than a half-century, is not your average nun.