The Benedictine Sisters of St. Walburg Monastery is a Roman Catholic congregation of women. whose motherhouse, St. Walburg Monastery, is located at Villa Madonna, in Villa Hills, Kentucky. It was founded in 1859 by three sisters of the Benedictine congregation of Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania, who came to Covington to teach the German-speaking children of St. Joseph's parish. They became an independent congregation in 1867. Villa Madonna Academy, a private, Roman Catholic K-12 school is an integral part of the sisters' ministry in Kentucky. Besides operating the Academy, the sisters taught in parish schools and staffed St. John's Orphanage. Background In 1852, Benedictine Mother Benedicta Riepp and two sisters left St. Walburga Abbey in Eichstätt, in the Kingdom of Bavaria to establish St. Joseph Monastery in Marienstadt in Elk County, Pennsylvania. As the Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of Elk County grew, a daughter house was established in June 1856, when Mother Benedicta Rapp and five sisters arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania. This was the first foundation established from the original Motherhouse in America. The community increased such that it not only became an independent congregation, but in 1859 established its own first daughter house in Covington, Kentucky. St. Walburg Monastery Benedictine Louis Mary Fink, a monk from the Monastery of Saint Vincent in Latrobe, and future bishop of Leavenworth, Kansas was pastor of St. Joseph's in Covington, Kentucky. He requested sisters from Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania to come to Covington to teach the German-speaking students of the parish school. Three sisters arrived in June 1859, led by Mother Alexia Lechner. Their first small monastery was built on Twelfth Street and dedicated to St. Walburg. In 1863, St. Walburg Academy for boarders and day students was established. The academy operated as an elementary school for young women. Later, a high school program was added. Income from the Academy helped support the sisters apostolate in the parish schools. In 1867 that same year, a group of sisters was sent to establish a community in Ferdinand, Indiana. Three years later, nine Covington Benedictines established an independent community in New Orleans. In 1880, sisters were sent to take charge of schools in Alabama; this resulted in the founding of a separate congregation at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Cullman, Alabama. In 1871 the sisters began to staff St. John Orphanage in Fort Mitchell. Villa Madonna In