The our bodies of 62 nuns buried in a 123-year-old cemetery on the former Loretto Heights campus in southwest Denver shall be exhumed and relocated as the previous Catholic college campus is redeveloped into new housing and enterprise area.
The Sisters of Loretto made the choice to shut the cemetery, which opened in late 1898 and acquired burials till 1969, and transfer the sisters’ our bodies to Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, the place almost two dozen different sisters are already buried, in accordance with a February letter from the group’s president, Barbara Nicholas, to developer Westside Funding Companions, which had hoped to maintain the cemetery in place.
The Sisters of Loretto had been involved about long-term upkeep and care on the cemetery as early as 2017, earlier than the property was bought to Westside, and had been assured then by officers that the positioning’s historic options could be preserved.
However subsequent conversations with consultants, officers, group members and others prompted the Sisters of Loretto to selected to shut the positioning, the letter stated.
“The valued legacy of the campus and the respect for the 62 Sisters buried within the cemetery had been constantly and constantly expressed,” Nichols wrote within the letter. “Now we have been impressed and are grateful.”
The Sisters didn’t return a request for remark Thursday.
Work to empty the cemetery is predicted to begin June 20, and it isn’t identified precisely how lengthy the method will take, stated Mark Witkiewicz, principal at Westside. The corporate had hoped to maintain the cemetery in place and labored the positioning into the redevelopment plans after listening to from group members about their want to protect the historical past of Loretto Heights, he stated.
“The lengthy and in need of it’s we’re completely heartbroken over it,” he stated of the choice to maneuver the our bodies. The realm will as a substitute be changed into a memorial park, Witkiewicz stated.
Denver metropolis Councilman Kevin Flynn, who represents the world, stated in an e mail Thursday that he too was disillusioned with the Sisters’ choice.
“My concern is that with the mortal stays taken away…the legacy of those courageous ladies shall be forgotten in a technology whereas nobody visits their graves within the huge Mount Olivet Cemetery,” he stated. “With their graves on the campus, everybody who visits the newly thriving group there would have a stronger connection to their work.”
These buried within the cemetery embody the lecturers, faculty instructors, professors and directors who fueled Loretto Heights Academy, and later Loretto Heights School.
In her letter, Nicholas stated that the spirit of these ladies would stay with Loretto Heights no matter the place they’re bodily buried.
“Since all the burials within the Loretto Heights cemetery came about from the late Nineties via 1969, we imagine that a few of their human stays are joined with that sacred land,” Nicholas wrote. “As a spot the place their lives had been spent in devoted service, their spirits stay. Their spirits and the legacy of the school will proceed to be the inspiration for the following nice chapter of Loretto Heights.”