New Stories on Sacred Lands: A Land Justice Retreat october 2023

What is Land Justice?

Land justice is the practice of centering ecological, social, and racial justice in decisions about how land is used, loved, and governed by people. Land justice has three important components:

• protecting land from extraction;
• regenerating the health of the land and ecosystems;
• and expanding land equity to Black, Indigenous, and other dispossessed communities

98% of private land in the U.S. is owned by white people, and 1500 acres of land are developed every day. Meanwhile, the climate crisis and our deeply unjust systems of power are directly tied to this disparity of land and wealth, as well as the project of colonialism and capitalism that created them in the first place. Land justice calls us to radically transform these realities — and create something new, together.

When we imagine land justice in our lifetimes, we see religious lands being loved and stewarded into the future by Indigenous land trusts and cultural collectives, Black food sovereignty efforts, regenerative farming cooperatives, habitat restoration, affordable housing solutions, and more. The time is ripe for these possibilities to flourish — and religious communities can be the much-needed catalyst to make them come to life.

Woven through the educational presentation, we also enjoyed stories and songs with Shawn Stevens, a member of the Stockbridge Munsee Mohicans.

This video explains the history of the Mohicans, who were originally on the land now known as Mariandale:

FEEDBACK FROM PARTICIPANTS

"Despite the fact that I have a very good civics education, I learned so much that I didn’t know. That’s astounding.

The injustice that has been done to Indigenous people and people of color is astronomical. We as a religious congregation have to look at that and do what we can to further the Truth of history as preachers. And also make reparations.

I think we’re becoming more focused. I don’t think we’ll have an answer before we go to chapter, but I think we’ll have very strong action steps out of this study."

-Sister Catherine Walsh

"I was really grateful for the sense of synchronicity that I experienced.

We’re coming to a time when we know we have to make some decisions, we know we have to set some directions for the future. We’ve been on that journey for a long time. It's created a sense of unity and urgency in the group. At the last assembly, I just felt like there was such an openness to each other and such a deepening of the conversations to try to come to what God was really asking of us. I thought that same spirit was alive in this group."

-Sister Judy Brunell

"Of course, the Mariandale land has a tremendous significance to me.

The way they developed a plan for us to go ahead in the future was beneficial. I might not be around to see it, but I know it’s in good hands. There’s people around to help us."

It’s moving forward. We have partners. We have people who know what they’re doing. This is more than one committee can take on alone."

-Sister Anne Marie Bucher

"The presentation deepened my understanding of land and the justice and spirituality involved with it. I found it to be a good experience and kind of a spiritual experience, also.

I don’t know that we have the answer as a result of this, but I feel a deepening of the possibilities. We need more partnerships."

-Sister Eileen Breen

"I’ve always loved going to Mariandale. There was something about it.

Yet the retreat called to mind my own experience of taking the land for granted. It was very clear about our responsibility for the land. The other piece is as we’re getting older now, is how do we want to leave this land in terms of how will it be really used to its best benefit. We’ve talked personally with one another but to come together and begin to acknowledge that we’ve been given this great gift of land and the beauty... that's our responsibility now with this chapter.

How do we see ourselves handing it on so that others can be enriched? So that others can enjoy all that we enjoyed over the years?"

-Sister Margaret Foster

"My eyes were opened.

We’ve done something horribly wrong: we’ve uprooted Indigenous people from their place. For our ancestors, there's a history of upward mobility and the American Dream. Yet, here are the original peoples, and it’s only gotten worse for them. While we're climbing, in that process, we're pushing other people down. And we've been so ignorant of it for so long. I hope that we use ministry funds for bringing people here to be back on their ancestral lands, even for a week or two. Mariandale could be a sort of mecca for all kinds of people, to get people to look at the land differently, to get that sense of place."

-Nancy Brennan, Associate of the Dominican Sisters of Hope

"Although I have an undergraduate degree in history, I was completely shocked to discover how much history of the Indigenous people and their experience has been erased. I learned for the first time the tragic history of what happened to the Indigenous people in this country.

And, in doing so, I recognize the need for people in this country to try to affect some justice as a result of the past transgressions.

In thinking about land justice, we have to be aware of the actual realities of the land. We have easements and some other authorities, such as the municipality, that do have a say in what happens on this land. We have to understand how the realities on the ground impact our decisions and intentions."

-Bob Krebs, Director of Development