Catholic News Service

In 2013, while volunteering in India, Graciela Colon first heard the inner stirrings of Jesus calling her to a religious vocation.

"The main purpose of the ministry," says Sr. Dorothy Fabritze of the Missionary Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart, "is to be a religious presence among this itinerant people who travel to a new city every day."

Benedictine Sisters Jill and Susan Reuber have often shared the same path in life, but their roads to their religious vocations took different turns.

How many Catholic parents today encourage their young children to consider a vocation to the priesthood or religious life? Sister Emily Beata Marsh's parents did, giving her the freedom to be open to the possibility.

Less than 10 miles north of Prairie du Sac, 22 contemplative Catholic nuns of the Cistercian Order live quietly on 112 acres of farmland.

Mercy Sr. Mary Aidan Donaldson, the eldest Sister of Mercy in the world and possibly the oldest living religious, died Oct. 25. 

Kamila Kaminska, the Polish actress who played St. Faustina Kowalska in the new movie "Love and Mercy: Faustina," read the diaries her fellow countrywoman wrote to help prepare for the role.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet said in a statement that they were safe and were remaining on site on the advice of the Los Angeles Fire Department and that firefighters and police were with them.

A Catholic nun who accused a bishop of raping her more than a year ago has approached India's federal rights commission, accusing the prelate of being behind a defamation campaign against her.

The Little Sisters of the Poor lost another round in court Oct. 22 when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled 2 to 1 against the religious order getting a religious exemption from the U.S.

Dozens of Chicago-area Catholics were joined by Lutheran, Jewish and Muslim representatives as they all prayed for immigrant children held in U.S. detention centers Oct. 16.

The Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is calling Catholics to an ecological conversion in their personal lives and in the church throughout the world, a theologian participating in the synod said.

Whether or not the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon helps open the door to ordaining women deacons, women will continue to play a fundamental role in ministry in the church in the region, religious sisters said.

The Little Sisters of the Poor filed a petition with the Supreme Court Oct. 1 asking the court to once again protect them from the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

The canonization of the first Brazilian-born female saint is making headlines across the country, putting news coverage of the country's current political and economic difficulties on the backburner.

Sr. Carol Hoverman, a Sister of St. Francis, who was at the forefront of Catholic communications for over three decades, died Oct. 3. She was 80 and had been in religious life for 63 years.

The High Court of Jharkhand state granted provisional bail to a Missionaries of Charity nun jailed on allegations of child trafficking 15 months ago. The nun, who is sick, has never been charged, reported ucanews.com.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Jesuit-run Georgetown University, has partnered with another Jesuit ministry, America Media, to produce a series of five videos on vocations to religious life posted to America Media's YouTube channel.

In welcoming the Ladies of Charity, Bishop Oscar A. Solis of Salt Lake City said it was "so nice to see and be with women in our church who do works of charity to make present the love of God, especially to those who are in need."

Women religious, and Sisters of Mercy in particular, attended several of climate protests and stood out by wearing purple "Mercy for Justice" T-shirts and carrying pre-made signs with messages: "The climate crisis is a moral issue" and "Mercy for the earth."