Sisters of Loretto
| Established | 1812 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
|
Region served
|
Americas and Asia |
|
Cofounder
|
Rev. Charles Nerinckx |
|
Main organ
|
Loretto Magazine |
| Affiliations | Catholic |
| Website | |
| Remarks | The Loretto Community encompasses members without vows and also volunteers. |
The Sisters of Loretto or the Loretto Community is a Catholic religious institute that strives "to bring the healing Spirit of God into our world." It is committed "to improving the conditions of those who suffer from injustice, oppression, and deprivation of dignity." Based in the rural community of Nerinx, Kentucky, the organization has communities in 16 US states and in Bolivia, Chile, China, Ghana, Pakistan, and Peru.
The Sisters of Loretto are sometimes confused with the Sisters of Loreto, whose members included Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The two congregations are not related.
The Sisters of Loretto were founded in 1812 by three women, Mary Rhodes, Ann Havern, and Christina Stuart, under the guidance of Rev. Charles Nerinckx in Kentucky, under the name of Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross. Their mission was to educate the poor children of the frontier. When the community was formed into a religious congregation, it was renamed the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross.
The Sisters were early collaborators with the Jesuits in their missionary endeavors among the native Americans. The work of the Sisters spread to the American Southwest during the 1870s, as the Sisters opened a Loretto Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (This school is the site of the famed staircase in the former school chapel, believed by some to have been built through supernatural intervention.) They also began an all-girls school in Montgomery, AL, in 1873, called Loretto High.
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