What's Happening

February 2, 2022, Adrian, Michigan – Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, was noted in a recent article in National Catholic Reporter’s Earthbeat for her work in the worldwide movement to secure legal rights of non-human life and ecological systems to exist and flourish for their own sake. 

Sister Patricia Siemen, OP

Before being elected Prioress in 2016, Sister Patricia, an attorney, founded and directed the Center for Earth Jurisprudence at Barry University Law School in Orlando, Florida. The Center’s goal is to “advance laws and policies designed to protect the natural systems, species, and entities that sustain life on Earth.”

Read the article on the rights of nature by Barbara Fraser.

January 27, 2022, Lansing, Michigan – As Mark Murray, a 1972 graduate of Lansing Catholic High School, prepares to retire from a career that included serving as CEO of Meijer, President of Grand Valley State University, and state treasurer, he cites many influences along the way. Among them are his time in Catholic school and the late Sister Patricia Brady, OP, one of his high school teachers.

Sister Patricia Brady, OP

Sister Patricia, formerly known as Sister Francis Kevin, was influential in the lives of countless high school students. In 1999, she founded what would become the Dominican High Schools Preaching Conference, in which students and faculty members from Dominican high schools in the United States and beyond come together in the summer for a conference focused on the Dominican charism, especially the call to preach with their lives. She chaired the first board of directors of Dominican Volunteers USA and helped to found what later became known as the Dominican Association of Secondary Schools. She was director in 2008. Sister Patricia died in 2019.

Read the profile of Mark Murray in the Winter 2022 issue of Lansing Catholic High School’s magazine, Totus Tuus. Scroll down to page 19 to read the article, written by teacher Stephanie Van Koevering.

Feature photo: Participants in a recent Dominican High Schools Preaching Conference, founded by the late Sister Patricia Brady, OP, gather for a group photo. Adrian Dominican Sisters File Photo