No Title 2713
History of Sisters of St. Catharine
The Sisters of St. Catharine were the first group of Dominican nuns in frontier America. In 1822, nine women who had never even seen a nun stepped forward to teach girls in Washington County’s St. Rose Parish. They converted an old whiskey still into a tiny schoolhouse, which eventually became the institution of St. Catharine’s College near Springfield—perhaps the most widely known ministry of this group of sisters.
St. Catharine today serves as an active farm, a nursing home, and home to some 100 Dominican sisters, most of whom are retired. Although they have faced a variety of struggles over the years, according to Sister Claire McGowan, the order’s primary goal has remained the same: “to seek truth, with a lower-case and a capital T.”
Their first struggle involved balancing the traditional demands of European religious life with the challenges of American frontier life. Rising every day at 3 a.m. for prayers didn’t exactly leave the women hale and hardy for growing food to feed the numbers of girls who lived at their boarding school. And then there was the flax they raised and turned into fabric for making the nuns’ white habits, all the while preparing and teaching classes. Eventually, some of the rigorous traditions were modified.
Sustainability, however, has always remained a focus. Sister Claire explains that St. Catharine’s Motherhouse was practicing sustainability long before she founded New Pioneers for a Sustainable Future. “Growing our own food on the farm—meat, vegetables, and some fruit, lots of staples—is part of our tradition. We have been trying to eat sustainably since 1822.”
When health consultants were brought in to discuss the future care of the order’s aging sisters, they recommended that the 100-year-old structure in which they were living be torn down, and a new facility built. “We refused to waste a building,” says McGowan. “We remodeled the existing structure, and it’s beautiful.”
In 1903, a fire destroyed the campus, which by that time already housed female students from all over Kentucky, the eastern United States, and abroad. The question of how they would find the money and labor to rebuild left some members of the community wondering if they would be able to recover at all, but—as the story goes—the return of the March lilies around the charred grounds the following spring reminded everyone that God was still with them, that hope springs eternal. “It is an unwritten value of our community to support one another and meet needs as they arise, even if we don’t have a clue how we are going to do it,” explains McGowan.
The order’s mission to seek truth and their commitment to sustainability—even without a simple and clear path forward—helped inspire Sister Claire “to seek the truth of the crisis that our planet is facing ecologically, and the truth of how people can respond with integrity to that crisis.” She developed the community organization of New Pioneers with their mission to explore environmental, economic, and social sustainability as a result.
In April 2009, the congregation of St. Catharine joined together with six other congregations from around the South and Midwest to become the Dominican Sisters of Peace. Sister Claire notes that there is a strong connection between peace and sustainability, quoting environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who said, “We cannot have peace on the earth, until we have peace with the earth.”
To read the Kentucky Living October 2011 feature that goes along with this supplement, go to Sister Claire’s Green Habit
