Local Marianite honored by University of Holy Cross

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald

At the University of Holy Cross’ Spes Unica Award Dinner April 21, Sister Ann Lacour, congregational leader of the Marianites of Holy Cross, will be honored with the university’s highest award for her unflinching support of the university and her faithful call as a Marianite nun.

“She is most deserving of the award, just in the magnitude of energy and enthusiasm and zeal that she has utilized in her services to and for the university during her term on the board of the University of Holy Cross (UHC) and as congregational leader,” said fellow Marianite Sister Marjorie Hebert, president and chief executive officer of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans.

“There’s no limitation to her utilizing her God-given gifts and talents. In this case, it is good use for the university, but she brings that energy and enthusiasm to anything that she says ‘yes’ to. She is very generous in her ‘yes’ for the people she serves and whatever the cause she serves.”

Spes Unica, the university’s motto, means “One Hope.” (That “one hope” is the cross of Christ.) UHC’s core values are respect, excellence, inclusion, integrity and compassionate service.

The award has been bestowed since 1988, with former recipients including U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Corrine “Lindy” Boggs, Blaine S. Kern and Holy Cross Father Thomas E. Chambers.

“It’s an honor to serve and an honor to receive the award,” Sister Ann said recently from Le Mans, France, the birthplace of the Marianite nuns, founded in 1841 by the Blessed Father Basil Anthony-Marie Moreau. The Marianite sisters joined priests and brothers as the Congregation of Holy Cross.

“To me, Spes Unica means one hope for all of Holy Cross and our church,” she said. “I’m receiving it this year with the hope that our world would one day know peace. It is what our founder wanted for the world when he created the order of priests, brothers and sisters.”
Became a Marianite in 1967

Sister Ann said she was heavily influenced by the Marianites who taught her when she attended St. Mary of the Angels Elementary School and Holy Angels Academy, entering the Marianite order after graduation. Later, she earned a degree at Our Lady of Holy Cross College (now the University of Holy Cross) and earned a master’s from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. She also has an honorary doctorate.

She laughingly said she won the award for being a jack of all trades as a Marianite.

Most of her ministries were centered in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. She taught at Christ the King School and Archbishop Blenk High School, both on the West Bank, and was principal of Resurrection of Our Lord School in New Orleans East. She also served in the Diocese of Alexandria, as director of religious education and as director of Maryhill Retreat House for seven years, where she “grew and saw lives changed.”

In 1992, she returned to New Orleans to become the Marianites’ director of development, where she remained until 2001. During that time, she oversaw the total renovation of the 100,000-square-foot former Holy Angels Academy and convent site on St. Claude Avenue.

She was Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans’ director of development from 2001-05 and, when Hurricane Katrina hit, evacuated with the children living at Padua House to Alexandria.

“It was challenging, but it was a wonderful lesson in learning,” she said. “I kept telling Gordon Wadge and Jim Kelly (heads of Catholic Charities at the time) that I am a teacher, not a nurse. But, I realized how those teaching skills allowed me to do what I needed to do.”

From 2005-12, with her parents getting older, she said she “lived in an extraordinary congregation with her family,” while serving the Diocese of Alexandria in special projects and as superintendent of schools.

In 2012, she was elected congregational leader, and “that has taken me literally to Canada and France.” During that time, she oversaw the selling of the three-acre Holy Angels’ site in Bywater in 2015, when the congregation downsized and moved in 2016 to a 5.2-acre site in Covington.

The move from Holy Angels, she said, made clear in life “that there are times to let go. That was a step in letting go of buildings, so we could be about ministry. We were investing a lot of time and energy in buildings instead of people.”

She also oversaw the congregation’s sale of Our Lady of Holy Cross College to its board of trustees.

“The Marianites knew it was time for the college to grow in ways we felt like we couldn’t do,” she said. “We set up a sale to the board of trustees with us remaining in sponsorship. There are five board members of the Marianites of Holy Cross. In these last 10 years, there have been so many positive changes at the university.”

Kyle France, current Superdome Commission chairman and a business consultant, was a University of Holy Cross board member and worked closely with Sister Ann when the Marianites sold the college to the board to create the University of Holy Cross.

“Spes Unica means one hope, one cross, and there is nobody that embodies the ‘one cross’ more than Ann Lacour,” he said. “She has given her entire life to work for Christ and the Marianites. They couldn’t have selected a better person to receive this. … To be able to come up with a plan to make certain that the Marianite legacy would live on was incredibly meaningful. Ann Lacour was front and center to see that that occurred.”

Because there are only 89 Marianites remaining in the world – their median age is 85 – Sister Ann says the congregation is heavily involved in pastoral care for sisters in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, yet they continue to be supportive of education, particularly the college they founded.

“As congregational leader of the Marianites and as a trustee of the university, she has – through leadership, through service, through a purposeful humility – steered the university through transitions (such as the pandemic and Hurricane Ida) so that we are true to our Marianite mission and that of Holy Cross and to adapting to the changing times we live in,” said Stanton F. McNeely III, Ed.D., UHC president. “She is true to the Marianite statement in so many ways, especially now, being a prophetic presence in our ever-changing world.”
 
“For me, Holy Cross is about family,” she said. “I think that is what the university is about. A family that says we are about educating those in a smaller, more family-like atmosphere that meets the needs of today. That is what our founder was about – meeting the needs of today as a family.”

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