Loretto Community condemns racism and systemic oppression in all forms.

The Community is working to understand our complicity in systemic racism. We can better atone and change by knowing the truths of our past.

We acknowledge that we must continue to do our own work, as individuals and as a Community, to ensure that we do not unconsciously repeat the sins of the past. Instead, we want to move forward with open eyes and heart, in a search for truth and healing. Listening to systemically dispossessed peoples is how we learn. We want to experience what justice looks like in our day. 

We work for justice by:

Acknowledging the history of the land and supporting research into Native Boarding Schools

Loretto, in cooperation with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, is in the process of researching Indian boarding schools at which Sisters of Loretto operated and/or served.

Loretto is also collaborating with the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious (ACWR) to develop a list of Catholic-operated U.S. Native boarding schools. This list is currently the most comprehensive and accurate list of Catholic-operated Native boarding schools in existence.

This resource was compiled by a collaborative group of archivists, historians, concerned Catholics, and tribal members as a tool to help facilitate access to information about Catholic-operated Native boarding schools for survivors of the schools, their descendants, and Tribal Nations.

The list can be viewed here. The site also includes a form where corrections and updates may be submitted.

The Loretto Community also wishes to acknowledge that the lands on which its members live and work embody the ancestral memory of Indigenous Peoples who lost their relationship with these lands to Euro-Christian occupants. Loretto embraces listening to Indigenous Peoples and learning of their knowledge of the past we shared in searching for truth and healing of these realities. Loretto invites all doing kindred research to share their findings with the Community. The Loretto Community provides access to its Archives to all for research, within the privacy standards set by law and by the various Native Nations involved in this research.

Acknowledging Loretto’s history with enslaved people

We honor and seek deeper appreciation of the many individuals enslaved at Loretto — more than 50 men, women and children whose valuable service was rendered in bondage and allowed to go unnoticed in our history.

• Read about and watch the Ritual of Remembrance and Sanctification held at the Motherhouse in 2022 here.
• Learn more about the family stories of the people Loretto enslaved and the descendants of the families whose names are on our Slave Memorial in this powerful presentation and/or in this report by Annie Stevens SL.
• Learn more about our ongoing work to fight racism here.

Advocating for migrant justice

Loretto stands with immigrants. We welcome those seeking refuge crossing our southern border from Mexico and deplore current U.S. policies that shun our beloved neighbors to the south and elsewhere who are in grave need. The economic exploitation and military destruction of the world’s precious resources in the regions that are home to the world’s black, brown and indigenous people create unlivable conditions forcing millions to become migrants and refugees. We strive to give help and comfort where and when we can, and ask all to prayerfully consider doing the same.