The Church in My Neighborhood

Not a church, strictly speaking: it’s the Old Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The Ursulines — some of them contemplatives, others educators, and some of them contemplative educators, I’m sure — are the oldest continuously serving religious order in the United States. This building (designed in 1745, completed 1752-3) is the oldest building in this part of the country. It’s now the cultural heritage center for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The Ursulines in New Orleans now live in a convent in the Uptown neighborhood of the city. In the summer of 2012 the American Pilgrimage Project — a joint venture of Georgetown and StoryCorps — brought microphones to the convent and invited a number of these Catholic religious women to tell their stories.

I hope to meet some of them later today — and to hear their stories.

• 12 October 2013
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