MIAMI -- A South Florida nun was arrested on Monday, accused of disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice, Miami television station WPLG reported.

According to Miami police, a homeless man with a knife and an ice pick was causing a disturbance outside the Missionaries of Charity Shelter.

Police said as the officer tried to defuse the situation, Sister Margaret Anthony, who works at the shelter, confronted the officer.

"The nun refused to stay back. At one point, she gets right in front of, or right in the middle of, the police officer and this knife-, ice pick-wielding man. It was a situation, according to the police officer, where he was concerned about his safety," said Delrish Moss of the Miami Police Department.

The officer said Anthony "walked toward me flaring her arms," standing between him and the armed man and yelling.

"She was loud. She was belligerent," Moss said.

Those who know Anthony said she was trying to calm the man, whom she knew, to avoid him being taken to jail.

"Everything is with the greater glory of God. There's nothing else we want to say," said another nun who works with Anthony.

"She is very passionate about what she does, and she's very protective. We don't believe that this was a situation where she was trying to be anything more than protective. Unfortunately, she stepped over the boundary of just being protective to actual interfering," Moss said.

The police officer arrested Anthony, who he said distracted him and delayed him from arresting the armed suspect. She faces misdemeanor charges of obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct.