Congregation Takes Important Steps

Helping to heal our common home

Over the past several months, the Sisters of the Holy Cross have taken important steps as part of their "Our Time is Now" campaign to align with the aims of the Laudato Si′ Action Platform. Launched by the Vatican late last fall, the platform—like the encyclical—calls all of humanity to come together to help heal our common home by acting on seven important goals.

These seven goals are giving congregations, like our own, common language and focus so that we may all work strategically toward the universal objective of integral ecology—where we acknowledge the interconnection of the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. The seven-year commitment made by Sisters of the Holy Cross in 2021 is in its initial  phase of coordination and planning and has kicked off with great zeal and a trust in providence, traits common to the Holy Cross Family and our founder, Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau.

Laudato Si′ coordinator hired

To further express our commitment to this work, the Congregation hired Katie Yohe as the Laudato Si′ coordinator for mission advancement. In the role for less than three months, Yohe has already helped facilitate the initial assessment required by the platform and is coordinating educational workshops for our sisters and key dialogues among our justice teams.

Yohe became acquainted with the Congregation through Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, where she graduated with a bachelor’s in education in 2009. While there, she helped develop the first post-graduate volunteer program with the Sisters of the Holy Cross and became one of the first participants, living in community with our sisters in Ghana for a year. After teaching at Our Lady of Holy Cross School in Kasoa, Ghana, she returned to the states and later received her master’s in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2016. She has remained active with the Congregation and has traveled back to Ghana 15 times since 2009 to continue serving with the sisters on various ministries, including S.O.A.R.—Sisters Organizing and Advancing Recycling. 

It takes all of us, acting together

As the newly appointed coordinator, Yohe is also conducting outreach in the local community with parishes and civic leaders and will be traveling to Ghana and Uganda in a few months to work with sisters on their Laudato Si′ efforts.

“We’re still in the assessment and discernment stages of this process but are starting to coordinate the drafting of our written plan,” said Yohe. “The written plan will include status updates for climate change, pollution and/or other forms of environmental degradation in each of the countries where our sisters serve. Having the sisters help compose this plan gives us important insight to their experiences and the suffering experienced by others as part of this global climate crisis.”

“All of us can cooperate as instruments
of God for the care of creation” (Laudato Si′ 14).

The sisters recognize the long process and large commitment of this initiative, though it’s really a continuation of their nearly 180 years of service. Caring for our planet and its people is nothing new to the Sisters of the Holy Cross, as evidenced in their corporate stands, the Mission, Core Values and the ministries they carry out every day. The Laudato Si′ Action Platform conveniently provides a coordinated way to work with other congregations, share resources, and to learn and support one another.

With congregations around the world completing these assessments and launching their own plans, we hope to share with each other new ideas and insights that come forward. As Pope Francis reminds us, “All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation” (Laudato Si′ 14).

Join with us

Please consider taking this journey with the Sisters of the Holy Cross by joining our mailing list, or visit cscsisters.org/OurTimeIsNow. Here we will share resources and progress, and hopefully encourage positive change that you can help spread across the planet.