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Preserving the Land with Love and Devotion [1]
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Date: 2025-08-07
Donna Eder visits the Cedars of Peace hermitages at the Loretto Motherhouse at least four times a year. Here in a small cabin, constructed with wood from the surrounding forest, she retreats in a way she can’t anywhere else. The feeling emerges from meditating in the rustic chapel, taking contemplative walks around Mary Lake, reading words of encouragement and gratitude in the communal cabin journals, and sitting on the screened porch experiencing the sights and sounds of the forest.
“It’s so peaceful there, and I don’t just mean it’s quiet,” Eder said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “The land holds a deep sense of restful peace. The nuns have put prayerful energy into it for so long, and I have a strong sense of being sheltered and watched over.”
The Catholic Sisters of Loretto have stewarded this 788-acre property since 1824. Nerinx, Kentucky, is deep in the central bluegrass region, about a little over an hour south of Louisville. It was farmed by Father Stephen Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States, from 1796 to 1819. Before that, it was the home to the Native American mound-building cultures of Adena and Hopewell as well as the Cherokee, Haudenosaunee, Shawnee and Yucchi tribes.
The Cedars of Peace hermitages are in a wooded area on the Loretto Community’s 788-acre property. (Photo by Susan Classen)
The Loretto Community, consisting of vowed Sisters and committed co-members, which are people of many spiritual traditions who undergo a two to five year discernment process and share in the mission, treasures this sacred place as their spiritual home. As stated in their Land Ethic which was adopted in 2006, the Loretto Community recognizes land as a gift and sign of God.
“We are called to care for Earth in its pain, to celebrate its beauty, and to create space for its healing,” The Land Ethic reads. “Those responsible for land at any particular time should regard it as a sacred trust, received with gratitude, tended with care for its integrity (and) long-term sustainability.”
The community’s shared values reflected in the Land Ethic have led the members to take many steps, small and large, to let it be what it is and do what it does, forever.
“They are so mindful of lovingly preserving the land, with a great deal of love and devotion,” said Eder.
A Flourishing Farm
Part of that care is the tender way in which the Loretto Community lives on the land. The fields have been farmed for over 225 years and current practices nourish the health and productivity of the land.
“I interpret the Land Ethic as giving each creature its own due, from the cattle down to the soil microbes,” said Farm Manager Cody Rakes in an interview. “The land has its own mission and it is our job to listen to that and cooperate with it.”
Rakes and his team have adopted regenerative agriculture practices, a method of sustainable farming that focuses on soil health. The breed of cattle they raise, a mix of South Poll, Shorthorn and Hereford, has specifically adapted to the conditions at this farm. Grazing the cattle in an intensive rotation for most of the year creates more nutritious forage and captures carbon from the atmosphere. Surrounding fields also nurture native plant species to feed pollinators and decrease mowing.
The farmers widely plant cover crops, soil-building species used in fallow seasons to prevent soil erosion, that are cut and used as mulch. Cover cropping increases crop yields and the water absorption of the soil. They recently completed an on-farm trial of a combine-mounted cover crop seeder. This tool, which integrates harvesting and seeding in one pass through the fields, is a huge time saver for planters. The Loretto trial proved its efficacy; now, The Nature Conservancy, a partner of the community, is recruiting western Kentucky farmers to simultaneously cover crop over 40,000 acres to increase soil health.
The land has an educational mission as well. Recently, other farmers gathered to learn best cattle breeding practices. Participants in a quilting retreat heard tips for mowing less at home. Local school children practiced traditional farm skills like making homemade butter. The Old Tobacco Barn, a community gathering space on the property, hosts these events, contributing to the mission to preserve the land. New siding was milled from ash trees from the property. Guests use composting toilets and reusable dishes. Electricity comes from the solar panels installed next to the structure.
An Enduring Land Ethic
While much attention is paid to living lightly on the land in the present, the community has a greater vision of extending the faithful land ethic beyond its time as stewards. This hope crystallized in 2013, when their property was threatened by the proposed construction of the Bluegrass Pipeline. Intended to transport natural gas across 13 Kentucky counties, the pipeline construction would have required eminent domain claims of the Motherhouse property. While the partners fighting the pipeline were ultimately successful, the experience urged community members to find a more permanent solution to preserving their land.
By educating themselves during that time, the community discovered that two things make it challenging to claim land for eminent domain: deed restrictions and cemeteries. They eventually created both.
In 2023, the community partnered with the Bluegrass Land Conservancy to place much of their land in trust. The 650 acres of protected lands include 110 acres of cropland, 242 acres of pasture and hayfields, and 265 acres of woodlands. The deed restrictions prevent industrial or high-density development while allowing typical human activities on rural working lands.
Limiting some uses of the land has economic and ecologic benefits. In the last 5 years, Kentucky lost an average of 290 acres of farmland per day, and the number of farmers has decreased by 9%. The cost of productive agricultural lands can be out of reach for farmers if the possibility of development increases their value. Conserving Kentucky’s rural lands helps protect important resource-based economic activities like farming, hunting, and distilling.
Additionally, the Motherhouse land is located on migratory wildlife corridors. Open land is an important refuge for the birds, butterflies, and small mammals that seasonally move through the area.
Loretto’s commitment and those of other landholders preserve a way of life.
“America has incredible rural landscapes that are important to who we are and provide unseen resources,” said Jesse Hancock, the Bluegrass Land Conservancy’s executive director, in an interview. “Having fresh water and the ability to fish and hunt are intrinsically tied to having rural areas intact and contiguous to other farms or natural lands. As communities grow, we want to make sure people don’t sacrifice rural resources in the name of growth without thinking about what is at stake.”
A Deep Communion
Away from the main Motherhouse campus, a trail from a small gravel parking lot leads through peaceful woodlands. Simple flat headstones dot the ground, marking where members of the community were permanently laid to rest.
According to Loretto lore, when one of the Sisters heard that cemeteries were difficult to claim by eminent domain, she stated, “we should just bury ourselves all over the property.” So, they have. Their natural burial cemetery opened in 2017 for members of Loretto and will soon open to the general public as the first one of its kind in Kentucky.
The Loretto Community cemetery is a natural burial site. (Photo by Kim Kobersmith)
“The circle of death and resurrection is the basis of our faith and the gospel,” explained Susan Classen, a co-member of Loretto. “It is one of the things Creation teaches us.”
For members of the community, placing themselves here is another intentional choice to conserve the land. They are wrapped in a simple shroud. No chemicals preserve their bodies. Thriving communities of micro-organisms will slowly return them back to the soil that sustained them. It is a final communion with God and their beloved land.
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