Where Are They Now?

The other story of the Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic in New Orleans is their own evacuation and resettlement with the Dominican Sisters of Catharine, Kentucky. 

Three days before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke spilling a wall of water the city streets, the Eucharistic Missionaries evacuated their most vulnerable members to Kentucky, home of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine.  “We were overwhelmed by the welcome and goodness of the people who helped us,” said Diane Hooley, OP, hospice chaplain working in New Orleans.  The Kentucky Sisters gave us a place to stay, to pray, they gave us clothes, books. “We were prepared for three days, nothing beyond that.”   The Adrian Dominicans donated six automobiles to give them the mobility they needed.

Since then, 17 EMDs have settled in St. Catharine Kentucky. Of the total 33 members, five are in New Orleans,with five others in Louisiana, four in Arizona, two in Michigan and one in Florida.  In the meantime, the conversations that have been going on for several years by the Dominican Cluster congregations continues to move toward the possibility of one new union of the seven. Eucharistic Missionaries and Kentucky Dominicans are part of the conversation.

Recently all seven congregations voted to petition Rome for permission to become one new congregation. So the Eucharistic Missionaries, along with their sisters in the other six congregations, are begining yet another journey together.

Anne Lythgoe, OP (Catherine de' Ricci), formerly Elkins Park