Letting Go for the Sake of Justice

What if letting go could become our deepest act of love? In November’s We Conspire series, discover how Brittany Koteles of Land Justice Futures helps Catholic sisters transform endings into new beginnings by transitioning sacred places as an expression of healing and repair.   

As St. Francis of Assisi neared his deathbed, severely ill and blind, he wrote his famous “Canticle of the Creatures,” a hymn often mistakenly attributed to the youthful, enraptured Francis. But it was actually in the vulnerability and frailty of Francis’s final act of letting go that he made one of his most significant spiritual contributions.  

In this same fragile space of loss and letting go, Land Justice Futures (LJF) and its executive director Brittany Koteles come alongside religious orders of sisters and help them, perhaps, make one of their greatest spiritual contributions — just and equitable land transition.  

Says Koteles, “One sister wrote to us, ‘I’m beginning to understand what it means to live in the faith of resurrection.’ Another said, ‘For 20 years it has felt like we’ve been preparing to die, and I finally feel like we’re living.’” 

The mission of Land Justice Futures is a unique one. Over the decades the rapid decline in religious life has led to religious orders having to make difficult decisions as its members age. Many of these decisions revolve around the land and property that orders are entrusted to steward. Given the reality that the Catholic Church is the world’s largest private landowner, religious orders are presented with an opportunity to make decisions about land and property divestment that help build a just, livable, and equitable future for everyone.  

By default, land transitions are dictated by the “fair market value” appraisal of land and other traditional real estate norms. Unfortunately, those norms were designed to be inequitable. That process traces back to the 15^th-century Church and its Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal decrees that declared that lands inhabited by Indigenous peoples were “empty,” and authorized European Christian powers to claim them through “discovery.” Those exact decrees are cited in early U.S. Supreme Court property cases, from the nation’s infancy to as recently as 2005. [1]  

With the help of Land Justice Futures, sisters are breaking the market-driven mold. Bringing their spiritual values into the process, they’re exploring new, creative, and just possibilities: In an era of climate emergency, might the land be used for regenerative stewardship and food sovereignty? If the Doctrine of Discovery shaped the era of private property, how might our transition shape an era of repair? 

One community has just made history by asking that exact question. On October 31, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration returned their lakefront retreat center, Marywood, to the care of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Ojibwe tribe. This is the first known return of Catholic-owned land to a tribal nation as an act of reparation for the harms of colonization and operation of residential boarding schools. Said FSPA President, Sister Sue Ernster, “It’s only the letting go — there’s also the rejoicing of how we can break the system that created division between us and the original caretakers of the land.” [2] 

Many sisters, Koteles has learned, first felt drawn to a religious vocation because of Catholic Social Teaching and their hearts’ commitment to social justice. Conversations about “divestment” are painful for religious orders as they confront the complex reality of letting go and the uncertainty of the future. Land Justice Futures asks such communities a question filled with potential: “What if the moment of ‘divestment’ were actually one of the most powerful of all?” 

“That’s the thing I love most about this work,” says Koteles, “standing in front of a community and saying: you are the women who built so many things in this country. You built Catholic education, you built Catholic healthcare. I mean, they built more hospitals than the government. But the way you let go of what you’ve built can also be just as powerful.”     

Land Justice Futures was founded in 2021 as an evolution of the Nuns & Nones movement, which strategically connected religious sisters with young people who had no religious affiliation (nones) but were spiritually searching. Whereas Nuns & Nones mostly involved sisters helping spiritual seekers — providing them with grounding, counsel, and help reconstructing their spiritualities — these spaces of belonging also helped Koteles see up close the immense challenges that sisters face today. Some of the “nones” began to ask the question: What if they created something that could help their friends in religious orders? In many ways, the thought seemed absurd. Who were they to help these wise elders and sages who had so deeply influenced them through Nuns & Nones? Encouraged by religious sisters who had become their dear friends and mentors, they pressed forward.   

“These sisters are so busy,” says Koteles. “They are leading their community through so much change… they’re transitioning ministries to lay leadership, running assisted care facilities, planning funerals, and amending governance structures — all while still being active leaders in their communities. With so much on their plate, who is making sure that they have the space to root into their creativity, into possibility, into their most deeply held gifts?”   

Koteles remembers one of her first times visiting a community of religious sisters through Nuns & Nones. She had been on a spiritual search and was hungry for eldership, mentorship, and wisdom. After a vibrant conversation with religious sisters that lasted into the night, they decided to each write a haiku reflecting on the evening. The last line by Sister Janet Rozzano, RSM would become an anthem for the Nuns & Nones movement, and all that has grown from it.  

“Surprise! We’re soulmates.”   

Reference:  

[1] Brittany Koteles, “The Doctrine of Discovery Still Rules Today. Catholics Can Help Turn the Page,” Earthbeat, National Catholic Reporter, April 23, 2023, www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/viewpoints/doctrine-discovery-still-rules-today-catholics-can-help-turn-page 

[2] Dan Stockman, “In Act of Reparation, Franciscan Sisters Return Land to Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin,” National Catholic Reporter, November 3, 2025, https://www.ncronline.org/act-reparation-franciscan-sisters-return-land-chippewa-indians-wisconsin  

Reflect with Us  
Brittany Koteles and the sisters of Land Justice Futures invite us to see that letting go can be a profound act of love. In releasing what no longer serves, we make space for new life to emerge — for repair, for renewal, for resurrection. When we loosen our grasp, even on what we’ve built with care, we participate in the larger rhythm of death and rebirth woven through all creation. 

Where in your own life might letting go become a gesture of justice, healing, or love? Share your reflection with us.  

We Conspire is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the monthly email series and receive a free invitation to practice each month.