Sisters leading a revolution of love — for the earth, the elderly, and every ‘dear neighbor’

Editor’s Note: Voices of Faith is a series that amplifies the insights of local faith leaders — voices too often missing from conversations about community development, city planning, and civic life. The series explores how these leaders address pressing issues such as housing, safety, equity, mental health, climate, and youth engagement through love, faith, and action.

KALAMAZOO, MI — Few institutions have been as influential in Kalamazoo over the past 135 years as the Nazareth Sisters of St. Joseph. 

They built Kalamazoo’s first hospital, taught thousands, and stewarded the land long before “environmentalism” had a name. Now, 135 years later, the Nazareth Sisters of St. Joseph are finding new ways to live out an old mission.

In recent years, their story has blurred into the background, softened by the demolition of their Motherhouse, the impact of the pandemic, and the slow decline of religious life in America. Yet returning to their beginnings in 1889 — when they opened the region’s first hospital and began shaping generations — reveals a legacy that still pulses beneath the surface.

On a recent chilly afternoon, three sisters sat down to discuss the work they are still doing in Kalamazoo. Work they believe is countercultural not only to the institutional Catholic Church, but to the ways modernity pushes us to live with less care towards our planet and community. 

To understand how that work took shape, it helps to begin with the congregation’s history.

From then to now: Non-cloistered compassion

Originally formed in Le Puy, France, by a Jesuit priest and six women in 1650, the order was established to meet the needs of its surrounding community. Twisting and braiding bobbin lace to support themselves, they chose to live a non-cloistered life and be among the people they served, whom they called their dear neighbors. 

The French Revolution forced the congregation to disband as some Sisters were martyred at the guillotine and others went into hiding. A reconstitution occurred after the revolution finally ended the bloodshed, and eventually, Sisters were called to the United States to serve.

The first Sisters of St. Joseph arrived in Kalamazoo in 1889 at the request of the Diocese of Detroit to establish the area’s first hospital, which later became Borgess Hospital. Within a quarter-century, they also established an orphanage, Nazareth Academy, and a school, Nazareth College. By the middle of the 20th century, they had nearly 1,000 nuns serving dozens of communities across Michigan.

After decades of growth and impact, the Nazareth Sisters couldn’t escape the tide moving away from religiosity in the United States. The percentage of Americans identifying as Christian has dropped nearly 30% since the early 1970s, and the number of nuns has dropped 76% in about the same amount of time. 

The Sisters in Kalamazoo have seen their congregation dwindle to a few hundred. Marking this transformation was the eventual controversial deconstruction of their campus on Gull Road right before the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the country. Like many things after the pandemic, the story of the Sisters and their presence in the community seemed to fade from memory. Their Motherhouse stood no more, the Kalamazoo Marathon — once iconically running through the Sisters’ campus — even changed route, and the number of sistren continued to decrease.

Yet the Sisters of St. Joseph have remained, and they continue to carry on their mission of serving the dear neighbor. In the order’s 375th year, the Nazareth sisters have stayed true to their values and commitments. These nuns are not cloistered in a monastery, but are seeking to live an entire life “attentive to the sufferings of the world.” 

Sister Christine Parks: Environmentalism

Sister Christine Parks has had a long and influential role in the Congregation of St. Joseph. She has lifelong ties to Michigan, later joining the convent in Kalamazoo and earning degrees in the education field, with a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a master’s degree from Western Michigan University.

From leading educational services at the once Borgess Hospital (now Beacon Kalamazoo), to directing services for an emergency shelter, and then serving as one of the seven leaders for the more than 600-member congregation, her rise to leadership can be summarized as someone who has always answered the call. 

Yet maybe her greatest influence throughout the years has been helping steer the Sisters on Nazareth Road to live more deeply into their sacred work of standing in solidarity with the planet. 

As the Sisters were discerning what to do with the Motherhouse and Nazareth campus in 2015, Sister Christine published a joint statement with Sister Rita Ann Teichman saying, “While there are values in preservation, we are like other congregations of women religious who did not construct buildings to be icons or monuments to be maintained for their own sake.” Even with this clarity, she says, deciding the future of the buildings was not easy. 

“There is grief in the loss. Conflict is an internal transformative process.”  Sr. Christine Parks on the deconstruction of the Nazareth campus

The surrounding community was at odds with the direction the Sisters were taking. A petition at the time gained over 3,000 signatures to preserve the buildings by either mothballing them — a process of closing off the buildings for long-term preservation — or by finding suitable partners who could take over the campus. According to the Sisters, they were accused of sitting on their hands and not trying in good faith to find a solution that would keep their 125-year campus intact. 

Ultimately, no partnership could be found that transformed the costly reality of maintaining the property while also staying true to the Sisters’ values. Eventually, in 2020, the Motherhouse was deconstructed. Yet it was not easy. 

“There is grief in the loss,” says Sister Christine, “Conflict is an internal transformative process.” 

That transformation led Sisters Christine and her fellow sistren to ask the question, “What more is God calling us to do?” At least one thing was clear, “We were not looking for a golf course,” says Sister Christine. 

In recent years, momentum has been building towards development in Kalamazoo County as acres of available and wooded land have been looked at for mixed-use developments and even car washes on precious preserves. 

Instead of selling land for development during a financially tight time, the Sisters of Nazareth chose “to be more consistent with who we profess we [were],” says Sister Christine, of the period in which the congregation had to decide what to do with their 60-plus acres of now vacant land. 

In alignment with their promise of healing and renewing the face of the Earth, Sister Christine and others helped transform the property. They were able to recycle and re-use 98% of the old campus buildings, install a solar panel farm, and utilize the remaining land as a way to re-establish it into an oak savanna. 

According to the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, oak savannas used to be one of the most prevalent ecosystems in the Midwest, yet now only 1% of the original Michigan savannas exist today. These habitats are stretched fields of open prairie and offer unique conditions for a variety of species to thrive. Now, at the corner of Gull Road and Nazareth Road in the Burke Acres neighborhood, community members can find a newly forming oak savanna thanks to the work of many Sisters of St. Joseph. 

“We’ve been working on bringing that back to a habitat that can be enjoyed by humans but also the more-than-human community, too,” says Sister Christine. A leisurely walk around the property will often lead to encounters with deer, other critters, and several fallen trees. “When a tree falls, people say to me, ‘Aren’t we going to clean that up?’” And the answer is ‘no’ for Sister Christine, “It’s about shifting your mindset about what beauty looks like and what we appreciate. It’s messy.” 

That shifting of perspective often comes from prayer and contemplation for the religiously devout, like Sister Christine. In September of 2025, in solidarity with other congregations across the world, the Sisters of St. Joseph went on a Pilgrimage of Hope for Creation to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Encyclicals are letters sent from popes to guide the Catholic church across the globe, and Laudato Si’ was a power shift in the attention of the Church by Pope Francis in which he called on the faithful to recognize the urgency needed to care for the planet in the wake of climate change and to see the planet as a common home.

During their pilgrimage, they visited locations across Kalamazoo to recognize and pray for the local environment that the community calls home. Along the journey, they bore witness to the Kalamazoo River, a location of devastation from longstanding pollution but also healing from years of cleanup efforts. 

“We tried to pair the harm to earth with what is being done by ourselves and others to restore earth,” says Sister Christine of the visit. They visited tiny homes on North Westnedge Avenue to reflect on intentional efforts to live according to one’s means. And finally, they arrived back at their original campus to pay respect to the land that welcomed them to the area.

Adjacent to the present Nazareth building is the Bow in the Clouds Preserve, a 60-acre property once owned by the Sisters. Over a decade before they deconstructed their campus citadel, the Sisters recognized they could not maintain a habitat they once helped care for. In 2007, they donated the wooded and marshy land to Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, yet another act of letting go to seek more. 

Sister Rita Ann Teichman: Elder care & justice 

Sister Rita Ann Teichman knows the vows she and her fellow sisters took are lifelong: “Participation and engagement in the works is for life.” Similar to Sister Christine Parks, Sister Rita Ann began her missionary service as an educator before taking on roles of leadership. She was in elected congregational leadership for nearly 20 years while also serving in a senior role at the Tawas St. Joseph Hospital. 

Sister Rita Ann has continued living out her lifelong vows in retirement through a Congregation-delegated role in which she connects with and oversees the care of those Sisters of St. Joseph who reside in nursing facilities. With over 40 Sisters living in the new Nazareth building or at several senior care facilities in the community, she is not taking a light load in retirement. “I feel I am a presence of our mission in each of those buildings,” says Sister Rita Ann, “That is what is expected of me.” 

Yet the American senior care system is set to hit a breaking point over the next few decades. The nation’s population of adults over the age of 65 is predicted to increase by over 20 million by 2050. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of trust in the American nursing home industry, as over 40% of respondents to a national Gallup poll in 2023 gave it a poor or failing grade. 

One of the senior care facilities where several sisters reside is The Villa. The nursing and rehabilitation center was once a part of the non-profit Ascension Borgess healthcare system. Ascension, once the only Catholic hospital system in the area, was recently purchased by Beacon Health System. According to the Sisters, after the sale of Ascension, The Villa transitioned management to a for-profit company. 

“I feel I am a presence of our mission in each of those buildings.” Sr. Rita Ann Teichman on her role to oversea and tend to the retired Sisters of St. Joseph

With the change of hands, Sister Rita Ann advocates for the care of those residing there by engaging facility staff. “They expect you to be there for them,” she says when there are changes to the food, personal care items, and the quality of care they receive. 

Sister Rita Ann takes pride in carrying the values of the congregation with her during visits. It is impacting others that gives her the most satisfaction in her practice. The Sisters shared a story of one of their own who was crippled with arthritis and living in one of the care facilities. In alignment with her lifelong missionary vows, she would spend many hours in the building’s communal spaces waiting to engage with residents and staff alike. “She would call everyone by their names,” Sister Rita Ann says, “She would talk to them about their kids or their troubles. She was doing the mission.”   

Sister Rita Ann’s visits to the vulnerable extend beyond the bedside and to the cellblocks that few service efforts in Kalamazoo reach, the Kalamazoo County Jail. Alongside other sisters, Sister Rita Ann helps the group conduct weekly Bible study with female and male incarcerated individuals. For the 35 or more individuals in the local jail who are Catholic, the group has helped bring access to confession with a priest, and they aim to have seasonal masses conducted there soon.

This exposure has also brought revelation for Sister Rita Ann and others. “The system is so punitive. I see it in what people wear, how their teeth are taken care of,” she describes the jail conditions, “The noise level [inside the jail] is punitive. It shakes your bones.” 

Instead of sitting idly by, Sister Rita Ann has used her influence to make a difference in the criminal justice field. She currently chairs the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a nonprofit arm of the Congregation’s advocacy work, CSJ Ministries. They are currently working state-by-state to actively oppose the death penalty, a practice they see as deeply rooted in racial injustice and a violation of the dignity of life. The group also provides resources for advocates to champion restorative justice practices that help “initiate processes of healing” and again, provide attention to the dignity of every life. 

Sister Janet Fleischhacker:  LGBTQ advocacy 

“We have a thousand ways to promote oneness and inclusivity. Whatever job or profession you do [as a Sister], as important as whatever it is, it is a vehicle for extending our mission,” says Sister Janet Fleischhacker.

As shared with her two counterparts, Sister Janet began her missionary work in the sisterhood, teaching elementary education for over a decade before later leading the YWCA’s domestic assault program. Within the congregation, she served as President of the Nazareth Sisters of St. Joseph and then led its advocacy arm, CSJ Ministries, for a combined 26 years.  

Throughout all these activities, Sister Janet says she has sought to use her influence as a Sister actively in the community, “to learn and grow, so I can bring the gifts we have of unity and care.” This has ultimately brought her into a space that is controversial within the Catholic Church: the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics. 

“Our congregation has a strong commitment to be allies of LGBTQIA [people], of marginalized communities in general. We counter some of the Church’s awareness and interests. But we are not doing anything Jesus wouldn’t do.”  — Sr. Janet Fleischhacker

There are an estimated 1.3 million Roman Catholics who are LGBTQIA+ just within the United States. Even with millions of LGBTQ Catholics across the globe, the institutional Church has stood firm in its stance against homosexuality. Pope Benedict XVI, whose papacy lasted into 2005, said homosexuality is an “intrinsic moral evil” and an “objective disorder.” Even the late Pope Francis, who marked a radical shift in the Church by offering a more accepting tone to LGBTQ people, said homosexuality was still a sin. 

This has led many to distrust the Catholic Church, says Sister Janet. “You hear people say, ‘I used to be Catholic, but the Catholic Church doesn’t embrace us.’” 

Yet Sister Janet and the congregants have been using their influence to push the church towards a more accepting and loving posture on LGBTQ inclusion. “Our congregation has a strong commitment to be allies of LGBTQIA [people], of marginalized communities in general,” she says, “We counter some of the Church’s awareness and interests. But we are not doing anything Jesus wouldn’t do.” 

Their position must have come out to those working on inclusion efforts in the community, because one day, Sister Janet got an offer to join a small committee of faith leaders organized by Kalamazoo’s leading LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit, OutFront. The Faith Alliance, as it’s called, helps religious groups “build their relationship with the LGBTQ+ community” and “further their acceptance and welcoming of LGBTQ+ individuals.” 

The offer came as a surprise to Sister Janet. “Why are you asking me?” she remembers questioning. The unexpectedness was not due to lack of alignment in values — as the Sisters have long had a presence at Pride and other inclusive events — but Sister Janet had no congregation to go preach to like the pastor and rabbi she served alongside. It was clear, though, to her that God was asking the Sisters to pursue “the more” again, this time as “a different Catholic voice than our institutional voice.” 

Bringing a voice of healing, justice, and inclusivity has been Sister Janet’s mission with the Faith Alliance. This was no more evident than during this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility. In prior years, Sisters would provide behind-the-scenes support with the yearly celebration. But in March, Sister Janet was asked to speak and was given a blunt prompt of, “We think you need to say some things.” 

“You could hear a pin drop,” Sister Janet remembers while looking out over the crowd gathered at The People’s Church. She began by apologizing for the pain the Catholic Church has caused in the lives of those who are transgender. She then shared the congregation’s mission for unity and love, and of John 17:21, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” 

After her speech, the room opened up, and each religious representative went to an area of the chapel to provide blessings. “I decided to use oil. It’s a sign of strength,” says Sister Janet. Person after person came to speak with her and receive a blessing from a Catholic nun. 

As the event wrapped up, a pastor walked up to Sister Janet and said, “You probably didn’t see this, but you had the longest line.” She thought to herself, it was probably the longest because we had caused the most harm. Yet in a hopeful reflection now, she reminds herself, “Even we can reconcile a part of the harm. That is the purpose of my presence and my ministry there. To be a healing voice.”

Her advocacy for inclusion extends beyond the Faith Alliance. As a board member at Catholic Charities, an arm of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, she helps provide direction to the Ark Shelter, the only shelter in the county that supports runaway and homeless youth. She knew that LGBTQ youth face higher rates of homelessness, and as a Catholic shelter serving that population in Southwest Michigan, she heard rumblings of distrust in how the organization treated the LGBTQ youth seeking their care. After conversations with staff only highlighted their deep commitment to love and serve all youth they encountered, she knew healing was needed in the community. She instructed staff to connect with other referring agencies in the area and to share their open and affirming services. Sister Janet believes the level of trust in the Ark Shelter has grown strongly since.

These efforts have not gone without pain for the Sisters. Pontificates before have sent Vatican investigators to look into the actions and beliefs of the Nazareth Sisters, and collaboration from local parishes is rarely received. When asked why their voice on inclusivity matters here in a small midwestern town, Sister Janet knows exactly why, “If they are looking for [these teachings] locally, they are not going to hear it in the pulpit. So our voice is very important.” 

Hope prevails

The Sisters laugh as they consider how these topics are likely received by Catholic parishes throughout town. “We have no stature in the church. They can call us whatever they want. They can investigate all they want. They can’t take away our life and who we are called to be,” says Sister Rita Ann. 

Yet as they have experienced shifts in the religious landscape of America before, one that saw their member numbers fall dramatically, new tides are altering the dimensions of faith. While the decline of Christian Americans has stabilized in recent years, there has also been a lurch towards a Christian nationalism that fosters beliefs counter to their own. 

“What has happened now has happened before,” says Sister Christine. “The Crusades were so tied to economics and possession of land. The whole spiritual dimension got lost, and yet there were places and pockets that continued that hope.” 

The three sisters don’t know if we are in such dire circumstances yet, but they have hope in the long view of God’s promises.

“Hope doesn’t guarantee whether or not the outcome is what I want it to be. It is hope in a bigger picture,” says Sister Christine.

“Our question is what to do next.”