Faith in place: religious communities and the land

National Catholic Reporter, April 23, 2004 by Rich Heffern

We've all seen, or lived in, those multi-winged, rambling buildings with expanses of grass and woodland surrounding them, owned by and housing Catholic religious orders. Built where once communities flourished on acres usually donated by wealthy benefactors, now drafty wings echo with silence, are shut down or used to shelter the community's aging population. And it's a struggle to keep all that grass mowed.

Many communities, however, are putting that land to good use and using those buildings in new and creative ways.

"Historically religious communities have been leaders in constructing new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained," Holy Cross Br. David Andrews, executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Center, told NCR. "Many now are developing new ways of living and forming new relationships with creation. More than 50 are listed on our Web site."

The Rural Life Center's directory describes those communities that have devised ways to use their land wisely, productively and sustainably. For example, the Benedictine Sisters in Mount Angel, Ore., lease 135 acres of their land to nearby farmers for raising crops and are moving toward organic certification for their vegetable plots. And the Passionist Sisters of the Earth Community in Vermont, have established an "ecozoic monastery," the first Catholic monastic community dedicated to healing the earth. Religious communities everywhere are renewing and celebrating the relationship between humans and the environment.

Some are large enterprises like Michaela Farm in Oldenburg, Ind., where Franciscan sisters operate a 300-acre organic farm, complete with nut and fruit trees, beehives, nature trails, a straw bale farmhouse and a pen enclosing their buffalo herd. Others are smaller efforts, such as using a room for outreach environmental education for local Catholic schools. NCR looks at some examples of these innovations in the ways religious communities use land and buildings.

Rural charism

School Sister of Notre Dame Kathleen Storms, founder of the Center for Earth Spirituality and Rural Ministry, located at her congregation's motherhouse in Mankato, Minn., is one of the pioneers in this area.

"For religious communities of men and women who have owned monastery and motherhouse lands, this is a time like no other," Storms told NCR. "These landscapes once at the edges of towns and cities are now surrounded by housing developments and highways. With aging sisters and diminishing resources, selling some of this land to the highest bidder seems to be the best solution to the financially strapped communities."

Most communities cringe at the thought, according to Storms, "because of time-honored commitments to steward the land, preserve the contemplative space and act reverently toward creation."

Storms said there are solutions that benefit communities financially as well as preserve the space. "Conservation easements, land trusts, federal and state programs, and much more are available. There are alternatives like community/church-supported agriculture ventures. Our community is one example of what's going on nationwide."

The Mankato province's motherhouse is a three-story building that sits on a large parcel of land on Good Counsel Hill, overlooking downtown and the Minnesota River.

In the center's office on the second floor, Storms and her colleague Sr. Mary Beck, who left in June to set up a similar office for her community in Milwaukee, Wis., told NCR about their accomplishments, which so far include establishing an outdoor learning center for local Catholic schools; returning 40 acres of grounds to native prairie; reviving the small farm that used to provide the community with vegetables, milk and eggs; putting in community garden plots; and renovating the motherhouse using earth-friendly building materials and passive solar design.

"The charism of our order was to work in rural areas," Storms said. "One day I found myself working in Minneapolis and wondered what I was doing there. I asked permission to move to a rural parish as pastoral associate."

Many of these rural areas had already closed their schools, a result of the farm crisis in the Midwest. "I started listening to people, asking what they needed from the local church. Their main struggle was to stay afloat as small family farmers. So I began to lock into this problem and ask what we could do to help. We had come full circle, asking how can we be present again to rural people."

Learning from location

Storms linked up with the Land Stewardship Project, a Minnesota organization long active in the area of sustainable agriculture. "We joined with other activist farm groups, and we've been learning along with the farmers."

As a result, the sisters now help local farmers develop coops. Wanting to support local growers in every way they could, the sisters looked at their own convent's food service where 600 meals are served daily. "We changed our buying practices and now get all our produce and milk from local farmers," said Storms.