SSND In the News
Special Award Presented
Father Dennis Druggan, OFM Cap, rector and president of Saint Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, presented the School Sisters of Notre Dame with the first annual Reverend Mother Mary Petra Kletzlen Award.
The presentation underscores that School Sisters of Notre Dame have been co-ministers with the Capuchins for 150 years in Mount Calvary and the friars want to recognize, honor and esteem the invaluable contributions of women to the history and very survival and growth of the ministry there.
One hill is called Mount Carmel. The other is Mount Calvary. On the first hill, Sister Mary Petra Kletzlen and an SSND postulant named Francesca Muller established an outpost mission and school. On the other hill, the Capuchin Order built its first friary in the United States and established St. Lawrence Seminary High School.
At times, the faith and beneficence of the SSNDs became a lifeline for the Capuchins’ early Wisconsin ministry. St. Lawrence Seminary inaugurated the Reverend Mother Mary Petra Kletzlen Award to recognize the spirit of the SSND superior whose unrelenting support helped the Capuchins build from the ground up. Twice.
In 1857, two diocesan priests became the first friars of the Capuchin Order in America. The rite took place in the chapel of their neighbors, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. The Capuchins needed housing, and the SSNDs lent them their convent during groundbreaking and construction of the friary. A decade later, conflagration destroyed Convent Latin School (later called St. Lawrence Seminary High School), and the sisters temporarily vacated their convent once again as Sister Mary Petra encouraged the friars to rebuild instead of abandoning the Mount Calvary site.
Sister Debra Marie Sciano, provincial leader, accepted the award, crafted in Polish crystal, on behalf of the SSND Milwaukee Province. The award ceremony took place on April 24, 2010, at an opening celebration of St. Lawrence Seminary’s sesquicentennial year.
The annual Reverend Mother Mary Petra Kletzlen Award will continue to recognize women whose involvement is instrumental to the growth of St. Lawrence Seminary High School. The SSND and Capuchin Franciscan religious communities, which began their North American collaboration 150 years ago, will continue to make the world a better place by educating people in knowledge of God and God’s creation.Click here to return to current news.