The Journal

Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Lanz Christian Bañes Annie Stevens, a Sister of Loretto, holds up a book a fellow sister wrote about spirituality and the ecology in the Emerson Library Conference Room Sept. 25.

Making the decision to become a nun is not a common life change for a 50-year-old woman, said Sister Annie Stevens, an adjunct professor of religious studies at Webster University. She said she finally found herself when she met the Sisters of Loretto.

As part of the Brown Bag Lecture Series, Stevens gave a presentation Sept. 25 in the Emerson Library Conference Room on the cooperation the sisters have with nature and greening the environment. Stevens said she volunteered to do the lecture because of her love of nature.

"I love to garden and I love to get dirt under my fingernails," Stevens said. "I figured some people might not know as much as I do about the sisters and the environment."

Stevens, who taught in Nashville, Tenn., before moving to St. Louis and taking her first vows as a sister, emphasized how the sisters combine spirituality with nature. She showed photographs of how sisters in New Mexico live in a sustained community that includes buildings made with straw insulation and uses wind power for energy.

Stevens said that when sisters take their religious vows, they are essentially saying they will help the environment.

"A vow of poverty means living lightly and caring for your carbon footprint," Stevens said.

Many Sisters of Loretto attended the event, which lasted about an hour. One of the sisters, Sister Nancy Wittwer, helped coordinate the Loretto Earth Network, a coalition of sisters throughout the Loretto community. The community is spread throughout the world, with its motherhouse in Nerinx, Ky.

Sister Wittwer said the network coordinates with 16 other religious communities in St. Louis to help improve the state of the environment and call themselves the Intercommunity Ecological Council of Women in St. Louis.

"We have realized these are things we can no longer try to do alone," Sister Wittwer said. "We're in a serious global crisis."

Evelyn Buday, a professor in the behavioral and social sciences department, attended the event. She mentioned she saw a commercial on TV advertising a company being environmentally friendly but then showing the chemicals they use in their product.

Stevens said this was a common problem in today's society.

Stevens also said eco-sustainable living can be used as a spiritual practice. She mentioned various communities throughout the country that live in eco-friendly environments, including the motherhouse where they have small cabins out in the woods reserved for being at peace with nature.

Stevens said she visited these cabins and went on a retreat to the motherhouse before she decided to become a nun. During the retreat in 1998, Stevens said she realized she connected with the sisters in a way she had never connected with anyone before.

"I said, here's a group of people who speak my language, they love educating people, reading and exploring and comparing religions," Stevens said.

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