Janet M. Peterworth

Janet M. Peterworth is a native of Louisville, Kentucky. With an academic background in English, pastoral work, clinical pastoral education, and nonprofit board education, she has worked with a variety of educational and nonprofit agencies and served as a group facilitator and strategic planner. She has directed nonprofits in Appalachia and served as board chair of the John A. Sheppard Memorial Ecological Reservation, a land trust dedicated to preserving the mountains in Mingo County, West Virginia. She has served on a number of other boards and advisory groups. In August 2020, Sr. Janet Marie completed her six-year term as president of the Ursuline sisters of Louisville, Kentucky.

By this Author

A woman is depicted at prayer in an ancient Christian mosaic seen in the Vatican's Pio Cristiano Museum. (Wikimedia Commons/Miguel Hermoso Cuesta)

I think I was a deacon … or not?

A long time ago (40 years to be exact) in a land far away (northern Indiana), I think I functioned as a deacon. I performed diaconal tasks and duties. I think I was a deacon … or was I not?

Coal miners are pictured at the entrance to the Richard Mine, owned by the Elkins Coal and Coke Company in Deckers Creek, West Virginia, in this 1976 photograph. (Library of Congress/Historic American Engineering Record)

Today's labor and union battles echo coal miners' calls for justice

Pope Leo XIII spoke to the dehumanizing conditions in which many workers labored. The battles for worker's rights and justice continue.

 

A Kentucky National Guard flight crew from 2/147th Bravo Co. flies over a flooded area in response to a declared state of emergency in eastern Kentucky July 29, 2022. (CNS/Reuters/Sgt. Jesse Elbouab, U.S. Army National Guard)

Floods: Ever old, ever new

In a few months, the mess from Kentucky's flood will be cleaned up. But climate change will continue to cause extreme weather. And people affected will still need sympathetic ears.

Ursuline Sisters in formation sing in the mid-1960s (Courtesy of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Kentucky)

Generation after generation of women religious have done great things

Perhaps my generation could be called the "greatest generation" of women religious, but I must trust there is another generation coming — a generation who is equally great.

Jonathan Roumie, second from right, portrays Jesus Christ in "The Chosen," an internet series recounting the stories of the Gospels. The third season is expected to be released in March 2022. (Courtesy of Angel Studios)

The times, they are a-changin'. Get used to it.

When Jesus called his disciples, he was looking to create a different kind of community. That concept resonates today, as we all confront new ways of living amid a pandemic, the threat of cataclysmic climate change, and social upheaval.

Hildegard House, a compassionate care home in Louisville, Kentucky, was created at a former Ursuline convent. Karen Cassidy, a co-member of the Sisters of Loretto, is executive director of the home, named for 12th-century Benedictine St. Hildegard.

Former Kentucky convent finds new life as compassionate care home

A former Ursuline convent in Louisville, Kentucky, finds new life as a compassionate care home, the brainchild of a co-member of the Sisters of Loretto. It's one of many success stories of former religious properties pouring new wine in old wineskins.

Jockey Mike Smith aboard McKinzie runs down the front stretch during the 35th Breeders Cup world championships at Churchill Downs Nov. 2, 2018, in Louisville, Kentucky. (CNS/Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters)

Organizers fight trafficking amid Kentucky Derby

Major events like the Kentucky Derby tend to draw human traffickers. Every year, organizers raise awareness in Louisville about the indignity that occurs in the area during the Derby and year-round.

Cemetery where Maryknoll Srs. Ita Ford and Maura Clarke are buried in El Salvador, pictured in 2015 (Janet M. Peterworth)

On the 40th anniversary of martyrdom, we fast

It has been 40 years since Archbishop Óscar Romero and the four churchwomen were killed in El Salvador. Later, in 1989, six Jesuits, and a housekeeper and her daughter were killed. My thoughts come from Isaiah on the kind of fast that our God wants.