NEWS FEATURE: Nuns Make Enviornmental Witness With `Clean’ Cars

c. 2000 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The Sisters of St. Joseph are spreading the gospel of clean air. The 350-year-old order of Catholic nuns has bought five clean-burning natural-gas-powered cars and has assigned them to five nuns. The sisters see themselves as stewards of the environment, and the new cars are a means to […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The Sisters of St. Joseph are spreading the gospel of clean air.

The 350-year-old order of Catholic nuns has bought five clean-burning natural-gas-powered cars and has assigned them to five nuns. The sisters see themselves as stewards of the environment, and the new cars are a means to fulfill their duty to cut down on air pollution.


“For us it’s a moral imperative, to do something and live out what we believe,” said Sister Mary Schrader, one of the leaders of the order. “We look upon this as getting an important message out to the people.”

The 146-member local order collectively owns about 100 cars and allots them to its nuns, most of whom live individually in private homes throughout the metro area. The nuns bought their first Honda Civic GX natural-gas vehicle in September 1999. Four more of the white four-door cars arrived earlier this month.

The order hopes to have 20 cars in its fleet running on natural gas within three years.

The nuns who drive the five new cars received them because they live or work near the order’s former motherhouse and convent grounds. Those nuns have access to a nearby East Ohio Gas Co. fueling station, said Sister Loretta Schulte, the order’s transportation director.

Sister Rita Shinhearl uses the natural-gas-powered car assigned to her to shuttle elderly nuns living at the former motherhouse to doctors’ appointments and stores.

“It’s not hard to drive; there’s no trick to it,” she said. “It drives the same as any other car.”

Other nuns use the cars in their ministries, such as driving to work at St. Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland or to the Annunciation Church.

The Sisters of St. Joseph order in Cleveland and another in Latham, N.Y., are the only two religious orders in the country that drive alternative-fuel vehicles, said Marcy Rood, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program.


“It is fairly unique,” Rood said.

The Energy Department gave the sisters a $26,465 grant this year to help buy the cars and construct a soon-to-be-built four-car fueling station on the convent grounds. The nuns also received an $18,000 grant from the Gund Foundation to help pay for the cars.

The cars cost $20,500 apiece, about $4,500 more than a conventional Honda Civic GX. But there’s a big savings on fuel and maintenance over the life of the car, Schulte said.

The nuns moved to natural-gas cars because part of their mission includes educating people about the environment. And their mission goes beyond clean air.

They look at labels to see whether animal testing is used in making the products, Schrader said, and they have started a recycling program on the grounds. Long-range plans include creating a meditation garden and vegetable and flower gardens on the grounds.

“If you’re in union with the Earth, you are not poisoning it,” Schulte said. “We decided we should be putting our money where our mouths are. We can proclaim that pious stuff forever, but if you don’t take an action, what value is it?”

The nuns attended an alternative-fuel conference in Cleveland two years ago, then researched different kinds of alternative-fueled cars, such as electric and propane. They settled on the Civic because it looks like a conventional car, has a proven technology and has extremely low emissions, Schulte said.


Alternative-fueled vehicles account for only 430,200 of the 199 million vehicles on the road, Rood said.

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A typical current U.S. car puts out 0.25 grams of hydrocarbon emissions per mile driven, according to Erin Russell, alternative-fuels coordinator with the Earth Day Coalition of Cleveland. A Honda Civic GX puts out 0.004 grams of hydrocarbon emissions per mile driven, she said. Hydrocarbon emissions have been linked to causing the greenhouse effect and climate change and are a key ingredient in smog.

“I didn’t expect the nuns to be leading the charge on this and did find it surprising at first,” said Russell, who has worked with the nuns. “We depend on people like the Sisters of St. Joseph to lead the way and to break the ground.”

DEA END RNS

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