A former “wild child” actress who later became a nun is on her way to becoming a saint after being killed in a natural disaster nine years ago.
Sister Clare Crockett was an actress from Northern Ireland before her death at the age of 33 in 2016 . She starred in a Channel 4 TV movie called Sunday in 2002 – which dramatised the events of the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972 – and also reportedly turned down the chance to become a Nickelodeon presenter before following her faith.
Clare was tragically killed in an earthquake in Ecuador in April 2016 when the building in which she taught music in Playa Prieta collapsed due to the tectonic movement. She was 18 when she entered the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother in 2001 and on Sunday, 12 January, a service was held in the Cathedral of Alcala de Henares in Madrid, Spain, to recognise Clare as “a candidate for sainthood.”
Clare took her first vows in February 2006, and took on the religious name of Sr. Clare Maria of the Trinity and the Heart of Mary. She went on to help communities in Spain, the USA and Ecuador before taking her perpetual vows in September 2010.
Her sister, Shauna Gill, told BBC News Northern Ireland: “Never in a million years did we think she was going to be a nun, never mind make her way to sainthood. A lot of people have asked us about grieving for Clare, but I don’t think we have ever grieved for Clare because she is talked about every day.”
Shauna added: “Everything in Clare’s life growing up was dramatic, nothing was plain sailing. Our Clare would have loved all of this attention and the drama about her. But Sr Clare would have liked to be in the background – I don’t think she would like all the limelight.”
The ceremony on Sunday was held after Clare was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church — which is the first step towards sainthood. The BBC went on to report that the next stages in the sainthood journey: “Could see Sister Clare be declared ‘venerable’ and later beatified.”
Shauna told the Press Association: “There’s four steps to becoming a saint, so this is the first one… Clare’s life will be investigated before we can move on.”
She added: “No one knows how long it can take, 10 years, 20 years, two years, it depends on how fast things move. Nobody has been through this in our lifetime, so nobody knows what to expect or what’s going to happen.”
Clare was a self-confessed “wild child”, writing in her testimony to Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother: “I was a bit (or a lot) of a wild child…. I got my first job on Channel 4 in England when I was 15 years old, then had a few small jobs as a television host, and when I was 18 I had a small role in a film. I loved theater, just as much acting as writing, reading and directing. My goal was Hollywood… seriously. Why couldn’t it be?”
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