25th Anniversary Issue Summer 2016
Vol. 24, No. 2
LENN Summer 1994
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his 25th Anniversary inspired two of our former coordinators, Libby Comeaux and Beth Blissman, to offer this Special Edition. Libby reviewed past issues of Loretto Earth Network News, and Beth pulled out her doctoral research on the founding of the Network — and opted to return as one of our Coordinators! At pages 4 and 5, you will find a brief summary of Beth’s research, placed within Libby’s thematic arrangement of articles and layouts from past issues. The chronology spirals, returns, and spirals again, suggesting a deepening (if not exactly linear) progression. You will see poetry here and there, and even a dash of humor.
Editor’s Note Mary Ann Coyle SL “There is such a wealth of inspiration and information in these past issues,” Libby said. “It’s a formidable task to select a representative sample.” She decided on illustrative pages highlighting just a few themes to form a pleasing shape: Justice (Living Simply So That Others May Simply Live); Land and Water; Cosmology and Spirituality; Fire and Air. Interspersed, you will find snapshots of Loretto Schools and Earth Saints. A reminiscence of Santa Cruz retreats, together with
Past and Present LEN Coordinators Dorothy Mary Bauer
Pearl McGivney
Mary Peter Bruce
Susan Classen
Mary Rhodes Buckler
Karen Cassidy
Sarah Concannon
Beth Blissman
Gabriel Mary Hoare
Libby Comeaux
Pat Kenoyer
Maureen McCormack
Cathy Mueller
Mary Ann Coyle
Kathleen Tighe
Maureen Fiedler
Nancy Wittwer
Jessie Rathburn
Mary Lou Steele
Magdalena McCloskey
Mary Francis Lottes
Sally Maresh (Intern)
Francis Louise Ritter
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an article from a visitor there, reminds us that there is an open space in the heart of Loretto for the stranger. And paradoxically, it is at the margins where the evolutionary impulse intensifies. So here, with deep pleasure and a loving nostalgia, please enjoy some of the voices and visions of LENN’s everemerging sensitivity for all of creation.
Justice
LENN Winter 2003
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The Seeds and Sprouting of the Loretto Earth Network By Beth Blissman
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lthough the Loretto Community, for most of its history, appeared largely to follow mainstream Catholic and societal norms regarding interaction with the natural world, there were pockets of deep respect for and interconnection with life and land. The impetus for the Loretto Earth Network (LEN) arose from the grassroots, from within the fertile soil of a community struggling to stay in touch with the signs of the times. The seeds of the Loretto Earth Network came from a wide variety of sources in many different places. These sources range from studies of process and liberation theologies, to social movements such as disarmament, indigenous struggles throughout the continents of Africa, North and South America, farmworker struggles, and the feminist movement. Other members claim it was simply the view of the earth from space, which was never seen by the human species until 1970, that jolted their consciousness. Still others describe a connection with nature from their youth, which had been discouraged upon entering the vowed life, and which they were joyfully re-discovering. One Loretto Community member had unknowingly influenced others in the community in the early 1970s, when she raised a simple question while exploring ethical implications of U.S. consumer culture. The question arose from the need to throw things away, and this member simply asked “Where is away?” This simple and obvious question stuck in the mind of other community members and helped to pique interest in the LEN when it came along almost two decades later. Additional seeds of the network can be found at the official Assemblies, where the Loretto Community came together annually to educate itself, conduct certain aspects of community business, discuss the future of the com-
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munity and socialize. Environmental issues had surfaced occasionally over the years, beginning in response to a large number of land sales in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the 1977 Assembly, a motion was accepted regarding land use that built upon earlier work. It promoted a stewardship perspective and also the use of land in ways that preserved ecological balance, while maintaining the priorities of housing and food production. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, more events began to occur in closer succession. Some of these seeds of the LEN included inviting Assembly speakers such as Jane Blewett and Miriam Therese MacGillis, OP, who both challenged the Loretto Community to deepen an awareness of the earth. Also, a small group of community members had begun to gather at the 1989 Assembly to discuss ecological issues and support one another in educating themselves. This group of community members consisted of some of the same persons who had been conscious of ecological issues for years, together with some people who were just becoming aware of an interest in nature. Because of the interest generated by this small group, as well as by others in the community, the president of the Loretto Community at the time, Maureen McCormack, SL, created a staff position in January 1991 to coordinate the ecological work of the LC and to begin organizing a network. Loretto Community member Nancy Wittwer, who had been working as a math and computer science teacher at Nerinx High School in Webster Groves, MO, took on the position. The sprouting and growth of the LEN happened quickly after this staff appointment, and organizing a gathering was one of the first actions taken – a group of about 30 members of the Loretto Community gathered at Shadowcliff Retreat Center in Grand Lake, CO, in July 1991. At
Justice
this gathering, which was facilitated by Loretto Co-members Dan and Jen Wessler, the main theme was Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. The keynote speaker for this event was Paula Gonzales, a Sister of Charity from Cincinnati, who was also the Director of the Futures Awareness Project. The group formed five focus areas, with participants choosing to dedicate their energies in addressing one of the following: Bioregions, Rainforests, Organic Farming, Retrofit / Solar Energy, and Earth Spirituality. (Political action was seen as an integral component of all of these focus areas.) Within a month after the gathering at Shadowcliff, the first call for political action was sent out, urging Congress to disallow the disposal of toxic waste in New Mexico. Soon a logo was created, a vision statement developed, the name the Loretto Earth Network was agreed upon, and materials for the formation of Earth Spirituality study groups were disseminated to four different geographic regions: Louisville, KY, El Paso, TX, St. Louis, MO, and Denver, CO. Before Thanksgiving 1991, a letter of invitation to join the LEN, which included the LEN Vision Statement, was sent to all Loretto Community members. Over 30 Loretto Community members responded to this invitation and vision by the end of 1991, and by mid-1992, the number of members had grown from the original thirty to over 140. Structurally, the LEN shifted from one Loretto staff person doing everything to a “Board” structure of nine Sisters of Loretto in 1993 to a smaller LEN Coordinating Committee, which now includes both vowed and co-members. Thus, the LEN has grown from the seeds of many ideas into a living, functioning entity, and continues to emerged in dialogue with the signs of the times in this new millennium.
The Growth and Blossoming of the Loretto Earth Network In the years since 1991, the flowering of the LEN emerged as the network spread and continued to grow. As the Loretto Community was founded as a progressive community of educators, it comes as no surprise that the first efforts of the LEN focused on education. The materials for Earth Study groups sent out in fall of 1991 included the video series Canticle to the Cosmos, by physicist Brian Swimme. In addition to forming Earth Study groups in various regions throughout the U.S., other early activities of the LEN included: sponsoring an intern with Earth Connections, a group engaged in the construction of a solar Earth Center which serves as an environmental model in the Midwest; piloting a Kid’s EcoTeam curriculum project in St. Louis; learning from a retreat experience, entitled Rainbow Generation, in Kansas City, MO; participating in conferences related to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio; hosting vegetarian dinners; sponsoring energy audits of some of Loretto’s major institutions; and providing information about opportunities for environmental education both within and outside the Loretto Community. The calls for political action also continued, and the LEN staff member encouraged people to take action by enclosing a few pieces of LEN stationery with each request for action. Eventually, in 1993, written updates and letters gave way to the publication of the Loretto Earth Network News (LENN), which included features about conferences, specific actions and suggestions by LEN members, health and nutritional information and recipes, articles about organic farming, sustainable agriculture, the new cosmology, new economic paradigms such as the Natural Step, international events about the environment, book
reviews, video and tape resources, and information about LEN-sponsored retreats and meetings. Volume five, beginning in winter 1997, marked the advent of publishing the LENN on kenaf – a plant-based, tree-free paper – and this experiment continued for at least five years. Perhaps the most popular activities of the LEN in the 1990s were retreat gatherings on related topics. These gatherings were generally held in the summertime in the mountains of Colorado, the rolling hills of Kentucky, or the beaches of Santa Cruz, CA. Such retreats typically attracted 45 – 60 participants from all over the U.S. Also, LEN sponsored shorter regional workshops in the late 1990s, where Loretto Community members gave presentations or mini-retreats on such varied topics as A Spirituality for Our Times, Vegetarian Cooking / Diet for a New America, Creation Stories and Liberation Spirituality, Spirituality of Nonviolence, Cosmology and the Spirit, and Environmental Justice. Additional examples of the flowering of the LEN included conversations and connections with other communities in KY, and organized service trips to support Loretto-sponsored and other initiatives. There was an experimental organic farm at the Loretto Motherhouse, several rounds of Earth Study groups, and policy proposals at Loretto Assemblies focused on awareness of resources, conservation of resources, the elimination of pesticides, herbicides and other hazardous substances on Loretto-owned property and promoting systemic changes in the corporate world to help sustain the planet and indigenous peoples. Adapted from Toward a Liberation Feminist Ecological Ethic: A Study of the Communal Ethos of the Loretto Earth Network (Blissman, 2000)
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Schools 25th Anniversary Edition • 9
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Land & Water 25th Anniversary Edition • 11
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Land & Water LENN Spring 1998
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Santa Cruz LENN Fall 2007
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Cosmology & Spirituality 25th Anniversary Edition • 17
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Cosmology & Spirituality
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Fire & Air
We all breathe the same air. The air I breathe is the same air Christ breathed when He was on Earth. Air is the medium of the interflow between all people, the medium of the interflow between persons and nature. There is a spirit in air. Air can diminish the veil between the visible and the invisible. Mary Rhodes Buckler SL LENN Spring 1999
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LENN Summer 2013 22 • Loretto Earth Network News
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Fire & Air
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