Loretto in Colorado: Carrying out our mission of education since 1864
Posted on November 18, 2024, by Loretto Community
Photo courtesy of Regina Drey SL
From its beginning in 1812 in Kentucky, Loretto expanded its mission of education quickly. Santa Fe, N.M., saw the opening of Our Lady of Light Academy in 1852. Three Sisters of Loretto traveled by mail coach from their Santa Fe home to Denver in 1864 when Colorado was still just a territory. They had been recruited by Bishop Joseph Machebeuf as educators and came to open St. Mary’s Academy, still in operation today. The year 1885 saw the opening of a school in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Sisters brought with them their founding values, Catholic faith and mission of education.
In the past 160 years, the Sisters of Loretto opened 27 schools in Colorado, including founding Loretto Heights College in Denver in 1918, two years before women won the right to vote. They saw a need and met it, opening the college to enable women who had been hindered up to that time to pursue an advanced education. Today, Loretto members remain dedicated to their mission of education, working for justice and acting for peace whenever and wherever because the Gospel urges them to do so.
Over this same period, the Sisters and Co-members of Loretto in Colorado founded more than 20 organizations and nonprofits, including the educational and community-building mission in Pueblo, Colo. More recently, Loretto-founded organizations such as the Bridge Community, Earth Links, Project Wise, Stout Street Clinic Coalition for the Homeless, Southwest Improvement Council and Women’s Bean Project have supported the lives and works of hundreds of Colorado residents.
Since 1812, Loretto has believed that, “The Spirit of God is not bound; it reveals itself in the lives of everyone. Even as we give to others, we acknowledge our need to learn from those to whom we are sent.” (I Am the Way, Loretto’s Constitutions, #41)
This week on our Facebook page we will touch upon just a few of the countless contributions made by Loretto in Colorado in its more than a century and a half of service there.
