What is Emerging?

Around the middle of June 2023, the Motherhouse staff and Community members welcomed the Nuns and Nones (N&N) Land Justice team and 40 Community and staff members to a Loretto Land Justice retreat. It was a three-day retreat co-created by the N&N team and the Loretto Focus Community Land Justice Group. The main speakers and large group discussions have been recorded, so all of the Loretto Community and Loretto Link have access to this inspirational and profound retreat.

I was fortunate to be a part of a small group of Loretto members who gathered on Zoom over a period of a few days to listen to the recordings and reflect on what we saw and heard. And of course, this short article does not begin to do justice to what we witnessed. When the government and the churches were both on the same page and the motto was “conquer and take,” the white community used white privilege to abuse, enslave and cheat. This became the norm and is a dark period of our history, with remnants still clinging to us today!

One of the speakers closed the first day by saying, “We are the heirs of whatever happened in the past. History is not our fault, but it is our responsibility.”

And this is indeed a moment in our history where we can pause and reflect together to listen to the stories of our Indigenous friends, to form relationships with others in and outside the Community, so we all will be sources of hope together for the future.

As a first step, we encourage you to take the responsibility of forming small groups to listen and reflect on the recordings. They are found on Loretto’s member site. Click “Loretto on YouTube” under “Quick Links” (on the far right). The four videos are listed as Nuns and Nones Land Justice Retreat 6/15/23, 6/16/23 morning, 6/16/23 afternoon and 6/17/23. It is best to watch in chronological order.