Two Kentucky Catholic religious orders -- which own collectively more than 3,000 acres of historic farmland -- are refusing to give up portions of their land for a proposed natural-gas pipeline that would channel millions of gallons of pressurized, highly flammable natural-gas liquids through the area, the Raw Story website reports today (August 2, 2013).
The nuns of the Sisters of Loretto and the monks of the Abbey of Gethsemani have denied surveyors permission to survey the land ahead of the pipeline project, and say they have no interest in helping it along.
"We've been on this property since 1824," said Sister Maria Visse, service coordinator for the Sisters of Loretto. "We feel entrusted with this land. It's a gift. It's not a commodity."
The proposed pipeline would run from gas-drilling facilities in Pennsylvania to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, impacting 18 counties in Kentucky.
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These tracts of land are in the Bardstown area. The Sisters of Loretto sold to the monks the land upon which they built Gethsemani Abby, where Thomas Merton was.
ReplyDeleteThe first Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Allegany Mountains was constructed in Bardstown.