History
Two hundred years and counting! Loretto has responded to the call of God to serve God’s people. From children to adults, from elementary to graduate-level education, from eldercare to advocacy for the homelessness and underserved, Loretto has left its mark on the world as it seeks to “work for justice and act for peace.” Learn more about the history of Loretto.
Loretto has been graced by God to become a Community on pilgrimage. We have walked together and believed in each other on every journey we have undertaken. Some journeys are…
“We found the large cedar tree in the holler near the Valley House,” said Robbie Lyvers. It had been felled during what then Gov. Steve Beshear had called “the biggest…
Charles Nerinckx set a high standard in education for the Sisters of Loretto. His “progressive spirit animated the Sisters, and foreseeing that more than primary branches would be called for…
What the Loretto Community now knows about its practices of slaveholding, 1812-1865, is an unsatisfactory combination of a very few documents, some speculation and good guesses, and a very disconcerting…
For a century Sisters of Loretto educated girls and young women at Loretto Heights Academy and Loretto Heights College under the banner “Fides, Mores, Cultura.” Pancratia Bonfils SL purchased farmland…
After the Revolutionary War patriots believed that their daughters should be educated to uphold the virtues of republicanism to pass these virtues on to the next generation. During this time…
Note from the Editor of St. Mary’s Academy Newsletter: Veterans Day occurs on November 11 every year in the United States in honor of the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918 that signaled the…
The 200-acre tract that Stephen Badin purchased from Basil Hayden lay on the west side of Coleman’s Run, a branch of Hardin’s Creek. That land, called a plantation, had belonged…
Loretto’s first members, Mary Rhodes, Christina Stuart and Ann Havern, began their religious life together on April 25, 1812, a day celebrated as Loretto Foundation Day each year. From the…
This is the story of the land that was to become a new Loretto. In 1785 Basil Hayden led 20 families from St. Mary’s County in Maryland to their land…
When I was hired straight out of graduate school as the Loretto Heritage Center archivist, I was ecstatic. As an archivist, my job revolves around saving stories and preserving them…
“Forward, Forward Loretto. Hold the torch ever firm in your hand. Let the rays of its light lead you onward. Spreading courage and hope through the land. Thy shining fame…
