April 29, 2009

Seven communities of Dominican sisters merge to form one congregation

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CNS)—Seven communities of Dominican sisters formally merged April 12 to form a new congregation called the Dominican Sisters of Peace. The congregation will be based in Columbus, Ohio, home to the former Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs, one of the founding communities. The sisters gathered April 14 for a ceremony in St. Louis to formalize the merger. “There is a great sense of hope, great energy and great commitment to the mission” among the 265 sisters who gathered in St. Louis, said Sister Joan Scanlon, who has been elected to the new congregation’s leadership council. Her community was the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine, Ky. “It is very historic when seven congregations have ended and committed to come together,” she told The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville. “We have hundreds of years of ministry behind us.” In addition to the 187-year-old St. Catharine community and the Columbus Dominicans, it is made up of the Dominican Congregation of St. Rose of Lima in Oxford, Mich.; the Dominican Sisters, Congregation of Mary, and the Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic, both of New Orleans; the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend, Kan.; and the Sisters of St. Dominic of Akron, Ohio.