Former Carmelite Nun Dies in Arizona

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent Correspondent
January 18, 2013

http://www.gallupindependent.com/Independent/Index.html


GALLUP — Margaret Mary Liebst, the former Catholic nun who was once the target of an alleged murder attempt, died recently in Arizona.

Liebst, 90, died in Page, Ariz., Dec. 28, 2012, according to an announcement by Rollie Mortuary Jan. 4. However, details of Liebst’s funeral and burial are not being publicly released by the mortuary.

In 2004, Gallup resident Derek F. Kolb, a former seminarian for the Archdiocese of Denver, was charged with the attempted murder of Liebst, who was a close companion and assistant to the Rev. Thomas R. Maikowsi of the Diocese of Gallup. According to a Gallup Police report, Kolb admitted putting acid in Liebst’s cereal, Windex in her food and drinks, and replacing her insulin with water because he viewed Liebst as an obstacle to his relationship with Maikowski.

Liebst and Maikowski, however, proved to be reluctant witnesses against Kolb. In May 2005, prosecutors dropped the attempted murder charge in exchange for Kolb pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of harassment. As a result of the scandal, Maikowski was forced to resign from key positions in the diocese but was allowed to remain in the ministry.

Five months after Kolb’s plea agreement, the Diocese of Gallup issued a news release claiming Kolb had made a death threat against Gallup Bishop Donald E. Pelotte. No charges were ever filed in that alleged incident.

Liebst was born on Dec. 21, 1922, in Kansas City, Mo. She originally came to the Diocese of Gallup as a member of a Discalced Carmelite Cloister which established a monastery in Aztec.

Carmelite nuns live in a cloistered — enclosed — monastery and follow a contemplative life of prayer. According to Carmelite literature, they profess the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and a fourth vow of enclosure in a monastery. The term “discalced” means barefoot and is applied to religious orders like the Carmelites whose members wear sandals or go entirely barefoot.

Internal discord caused Liebst’s Carmelite community to disband around 1983. A few of the Carmelite nuns moved to Gallup and established a new monastery here. Eventually those nuns left Gallup in January 2001 after Pelotte couldn’t guarantee a chaplain to celebrate their Masses. They relocated to Kansas at the invitation of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, then the coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Wichita.

Liebst, however, left the religious order in the 1980s with the closing of the Aztec monastery. She then began working as an assistant to Maikowski. Although no longer a member of her cloistered community, Liebst continued to wear her habit and present herself publicly as a Carmelite nun.

For nearly 30 years, Liebst resided and worked closely with Maikowski, She followed him from Farmington to Gallup during the years he was director of education for the Gallup Diocese. In 2008, she moved into the rectory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Page, Ariz., after Maikowski was appointed administrator of the parish.

Maikowski, 65, remains a controversial figure in the Gallup Diocese. In recent years, he has attempted to repair his tarnished reputation by writing glowing professional profiles about himself and posting them on more than a dozen “reputation management websites” on the Internet. In an effort to distance himself from the Kolb scandal in the Diocese of Gallup, Maikowski falsely claims on most of these websites that he is instead a priest with the “Roman Catholic Diocese of the Midwest,” which is an entirely fictitious diocese.



Contact: ehardinburrola@yahoo.com