Twenty-six Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary who dedicated their lives to constant prayer have a new resting place in New Cathedral Cemetery in West Baltimore.
The cemetery, religious order and Archdiocese of Baltimore held a dedication ceremony Feb. 11 to bless the new burial site, completing an odyssey to relocate the nuns’ remains from the grounds of a former Catonsville monastery.
The cloistered sisters were part of a Catonsville monastery that served the area from 1899 to 1980. After it closed, the grounds were sold to a medical group and the cemetery fell into disrepair.
In 2016, as part of a research project with another monastery’s cemetery in New Jersey, Dominican Brother Ignatius Perkins visited the Catonsville site and was alarmed by its condition. After discussions with his religious order and Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, it was decided that the best option for perpetual care of the sisters was to move them to New Cathedral on Old Frederick Road.
Auxiliary Bishop Adam J. Parker officiated at the blessing ceremony.
“As we honor the sisters who are reinterred here today,” Bishop Parker said at the dedication, “it’s important that we honor their legacy by continuing to build up the Body of Christ just as they preached the Gospel with their lives.”
Eighteen people attended the 20-minute service, including eight from Dominican orders, with several sisters traveling from New Jersey and New York.
“We have a beautiful monument here and it does honor those who have gone before us, but this is not just about what is over and completed but what is yet to come,” Bishop Parker said.
Some members of the Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary arrived in Baltimore in 1903 after being expelled from France after new laws suppressed religious orders there.
The Dominican sisters’ legacy in the Baltimore area played a key role in the decision not to move their remains to another cemetery at an out-of-state Dominican monastery.
“The sisters prayed and ministered in Baltimore, and their remains deserved to be cared for there. Their mission continues in Baltimore even though they are deceased,” said Brother Ignatius, of the St. Thomas Aquinas Priory in Charlottesville, Va. “We have to honor our dead and they need to be in dignified places. It’s been a privilege to oversee this project.”
The physical move took about two weeks to complete this past fall, but the fundraising and planning took a massive effort that lasted for more than a year and was spearheaded by Brother Ignatius, who oversees 14 cemeteries in his Dominican province.
“When you look at a cemetery, you look at it as lasting forever,” said Nathan Nardi, director of operations at New Cathedral. “That’s what was so unusual here. Circumstances changed and this needed to be taken care of. New Cathedral has been here since 1871 and we know that we will be here forever. So it’s the best thing for the perpetual care of the sisters.”
Nardi said statues and grave markers were shifted to New Cathedral from the old grounds and moved along with the remains, which date back as far as July 24, 1900. The new site includes a vault and a new bronze plaque with each of the sisters’ names as well as two recently interred sisters.
“As Catholics, we have a duty to care for the remains of the dead,” Nardi said. “I’m impressed the most by the reverence that was shown for the remains. We have the infrastructure here to care for them.”
The project cost an estimated $150,000 and received a foundation grant from Severn Bank in Annapolis and donations from 25 motherhouses and 15 friaries from around the nation in addition to donations from several lay groups and individuals.
“New Cathedral Cemetery is a tremendous gift,” Brother Ignatius said. “The staff there is just extraordinary, and Nathan Nardi and Father Patrick Carrion (director of cemetery management for the archdiocese) were incredible advocates for the project. It’s very powerful to know that there will be perpetual care for our loved ones.”
Email Gerry Jackson at gjackson@catholicreview.org
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