News & Updates

WRAC Celebrates $5.5 Million Gift from the Sisters of St. Benedict, Crookston, MN

We are pleased to announce that the Benedictine Sisters of Crookston, MN, have made a generous five-year gift to WRAC to support construction and endowment of our Heritage Center. Upon announcing this major lead gift, Benedictine Pastoral Administrator Jennifer Mechtild stated, “Given the varying financial circumstances and current projects in many monasteries, we realized everyone was not able make a large gift. We make this gift to lift everyone up with us.”

May 30, 2024

Sisters of Charity Foundation highlights WRAC

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland is proud to be a founding funder of WRAC, a nonprofit organization serving women religious in preserving their congregations’ unique histories and charisms for future generations—work that has become increasingly urgent.

March 22, 2024

Press Release – Catholic Sisters’ Heritage Center to be Built in Cleveland

The Women Religious Archives Collaborative (WRAC) will establish a Heritage Center in Cleveland, Ohio, that will preserve and celebrate the unique histories and contributions of more than 35 congregations of Catholic Sisters.

March 11, 2024

WRAC featured in Dome, A publication of The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville

The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville Archives contains invaluable records showing the remarkable impact our Sisters have had in the communities they’ve served for the past 165 years. As archivist, I receive dozens of requests each year from scholarly researchers, former students of Ursuline schools, family genealogists related to an Ursuline Sister, and others who have been touched by the Ursulines in some way and who are seeking information only our records can provide.

January 5, 2024

CARA Special Report: Religious Sisters Archives

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate completed a study on Women Religious Archives in 2022 and published its findings as a Special Report in 2023.

November 7, 2023

‘A way to tell America’s story’: Consortium works to preserve congregations’ archives

The need is both large and pressing: Nearly four in 10 congregations of women religious surveyed in the United States are in the process or have plans to merge or close in the next decade, but only about one in three have long-term plans for their archives.

October 16, 2023