LIVONIA, Michigan (AP) – At a convent near Detroit, 13 nuns have died of COVID-19. The toll is seven at a center for Maryknoll sisters in New York, and six at a Wisconsin convent that serves nuns with fading memories.
Each community perseveres, though strict social-distancing rules have made communal solidarity a challenge as the losses are mourned.
Only small, private funeral services were permitted as the death toll mounted in April and May at the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, Michigan – a spiritual hardship for the surviving nuns.
“The yearnings, throughout the pandemic, were to be with our dying sisters and hold our traditional services, funeral Mass and burial, to comfort each other,” said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, a leader of the Felician Sisters of North America.
For weeks the Livonia nuns went without Mass and dined in shifts, only one per table.