Benedictine sisters leaving Diocese of La Crosse

EAU CLAIRE – In 1892[that's 118 years....] , Benedictine sisters from St. Joseph, Minn., came to the Chippewa Valley to teach at St. Patrick School in Eau Claire. When Father Lawrence Vaughn of St. Mary Parish in Altoona started a high school in the early 1900s, two of the sisters staffed it. Young women from Wisconsin began to join the Benedictine community, and its areas of ministry increased along with its numbers.


In 1948, the sisters were able to establish an autonomous monastery, St. Bede’s, on an expansive piece of lovely acreage just outside the Eau Claire city limits. They also started a retreat center there, which can house 30 to 40 people overnight and serve 100 per meal.

Outside of St. Bede’s, the sisters have worked with every one of the parishes in the area, and have served at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire. They have been active in Edgar, Abbotsford, Durand, Ellsworth, Richland Center, and La Crosse, among other places. They have touched many lives in many different ways.

The Catholic Times

Sadly, this tale will continue to be told by liberal religious throughout the US.  The entire article can be summed up in a few pictures.

Before:

After:

In case you can't see there, that's a resurexifix in the background, the beloved symbol of Guitar Mass and hand holding.  That is not to say that the sisters were necessarily pro-abortion like the leadership of the FSPA and the SSJ, but symbols do matter.  Clearly the more traditional orders are booming with vocations and those who have lost some(not all) of their Catholic identity are fading into the past. 

I don't mean to rag on the sisters, I am grateful for their service to our diocese.  I hope St. Bede's Monastery finds a good home. 

Msgr Gilles wrote a very gracious letter thanking the sisters for their work.