The Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica announced Jan. 23 that they will discontinue active sponsorship of Benedictine College, marking a transition in the governance of the Catholic college they helped found more than a century ago.
In a statement released on the college’s website, the Benedictine sisters said the decision followed “much prayer and consideration” as the community continues to discern how God is calling them to serve amid changing circumstances.
“As our community and the world around us continue to evolve, we, the Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, after much prayer and consideration, have discerned that it is time to discontinue active sponsorship of Benedictine College,” the sisters stated.
According to the announcement, the religious community founded Mount St. Scholastica College in 1923 to educate women in the Catholic faith. In 1971, the institution merged with St. Benedict’s College, founded by St. Benedict’s Abbey, to form Benedictine College.
“The college has continued our legacy of providing a strong academic program and an environment for students to live out their faith,” they said.
The sisters said their mission continues through other ministries, including the Keeler Women’s Center and the Sophia Spirituality Center — which provide spiritual formation, retreats, and educational programs — as well as through their care for the sick, the elderly, and creation.
While the sisters are withdrawing from governing responsibilities related to the discontinuing sponsorship, they emphasized that their relationship with the college will continue. They said they will remain involved through hospitality at the monastery, collaboration on college-related programs, and ongoing relationships with students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
“We are proud to call ourselves co-founders of Benedictine College,” they said, “and we will continue to pray for its continued success.”
In a joint response issued the same day, St. Benedict’s Abbey and Benedictine College said they accepted the sisters’ decision “with heavy hearts but with grateful understanding.”
“The Sisters of the Mount are our courageous co-founders,” the statement said, “and the authors of some of the most dynamic and impressive chapters in our shared history.”
“While the formal, juridical connection between us will end, our close relationship and our friendship in Christ will not,” the statement said, adding that the college’s history is “unthinkable without the Mount.”
The college and abbey concluded by thanking the sisters for their decades of collaboration and service, saying, “You have been our beloved sisters, our family, and nothing will change that.”
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