During a special ceremony May 16, the Dominican Sisters of Peace remembered and honored the people who were enslaved at their Motherhouse in St. Catharine, Ky.
The ceremony centered on blessing a newly erected monument in the Motherhouse cemetery that honors the enslaved people who were brought to the Motherhouse by the congregation’s founding members.
The monument’s inscription says it was erected “In gratitude to the enslaved women, men and children whose lives enabled the founding of Dominican Sisters in the United States” in St. Catharine, Ky., 200 years ago. It lists the names of those who the congregation has been able to identify through research and records, as well as “those whose lives and names are known only to God.”
The blessing was attended by Dominican Sisters and Associates; Dominican Father Kevin McGrath, pastor of St. Rose and Holy Rosary churches in Springfield, Ky.; and community members.
The Dominican Sisters of Peace, along with other congregations of women religious in the Archdiocese of Louisville, asked for forgiveness in 2000 for being slave owners. The monument blessing was the last in a year-long series of events marking the 200th anniversary of the community’s founding.
