Where else but San Francisco could Irene Smith, a true pioneer in care for the ill and dying, be sainted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence amidst performances by a dildo toting Kitten on the Keys, a.k.a. Saint Tickly Ivy, and District 6 supervisorial candidate Glendon "Ana Conda" Hyde?

The setting was Cafe Flore at sunset on Saturday night, December 19. Smith, who conducts Everflowing (http://www.everflowing.org) educational programs that teach touch skills as an integral component of end of life care, is revered as one of the first people to regularly massage those living with AIDS. She began her outreach in 1983, when she started going room to room offering her touch to patients on San Francisco General Hospital's Ward 5A (then the major AIDS ward in the city). Even before that, in April 1982, she approached the Hospice of San Francisco to propose what was then a novel service, massage for terminally ill hospice clients.

Smith arrived at the sainting in a hooded overcoat tailor-made for the nunnery. Supporting her sainthood were a host of friends and colleagues, including Nancy Jaikes Alexander, who started the first prison hospice in the country over two decades ago at Vacaville Prison, and Eric Poche, director of volunteer services at the Zen Hospice Project.

Some of the Sisters who studied healing touch with Smith as part of their ministerial service as hospice volunteers proposed her for sainthood. Sister Selma Soul (mistress of honors and awards), who joined Sister Dinah Might, Sister maejoy Bee withU, and Sister Dionna Cross (mistress of grants) to officiate the ceremony, explained that the Sisters have sainted a couple hundred people during their 30 years of existence. Since members of the order nominate potential saints, the number of annual saintings has grown as the sisterhood has increased from four nuns to over 50.

Smith was introduced by one of her students, Sister Dinah Might.

"We have hospices in San Francisco due in part to Smith's work with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. People need dignity before they die," Might said. Might also announced that, thanks to Smith's influence, she had just completed her 40th hospice visit.

Smith lowered her head, then rejoiced with laughter as she was proclaimed "Saint Everflowing." Also sainted, intentionally without advance notice, was Bill Ponsky. Sainted as "Saint Driving Miss Crazy," Ponsky is the partner of Sister Jezebel, and faithfully assists at the Sisters' numerous fundraising efforts, including Dore Alley, Pink Saturday, and bingo.

Thanks to their ongoing fundraising efforts and benefits, the Sisters dispense grants three times a year to service organizations and projects vital to the LGBT community. Between entertainments, Sister Dionna Cross officiated the annual Saturnalia Grant Cycle by dispensing 19 grants totaling over $10,000. Some of the recipients included the San Jose University Diversity Program, Breast Cancer Action, Save Needle Exchange, the Immune Enhancement Project, Tenderloin Tessie, Our Family Coalition, Shanti, and several film projects. A representative of the GLBT Historical Society was also on hand to celebrate the Sisters' 30th year of community service.