Record Staff Report
Sister Mary Teresa Burns and Sister Carol Curtis — two former Discalced Carmelite Sisters — mark 25 years of religious life this year. Sisters Burns and Curtis are in the midst of a three-year transition to become Ursuline Sisters of Louisville.
Sister Burns was born in Germany and later moved to Louisville, where she graduated from Assumption High School. She entered the Carmelite Monastery of Mary Immaculate and St. Joseph in October 1990, following her graduation from Bellarmine University.
She lived a cloistered life for 24 years in the monastery on Newburg Road. In August 2015, when the Carmelite Monastery closed, she found a new home with the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville.
Sister Burns is in the process of becoming a chaplain.
Sister Curtis was born in Illinois and entered the Catholic Church at age 20 while in Taiwan as a Dartmouth University student. She served in the Peace Corps and later entered the Carmelite Monastery on her 26th birthday. Sister Carol, then known as Mother John-Baptist, was serving as prioress when the Carmelites closed the monastery on Newburg Road. She led the remaining eight Carmelites to find new homes.
Since coming to live with the Ursuline community, Sister Curtis has become involved with the Angela Merici Center for Spirituality and the social justice ministries of the Ursulines. She is active with Shively Area Ministries and at the St. John’s Center for Homeless Men.
