Dan Stockman

Each month, Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual creates a feminist liturgy that honors wise women, celebrates holidays or raises a feminist justice issue.

The national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about two-thirds of the 36,000 Catholic sisters in the United States, voted June 25 to name Sr. Kathy Brazda, of the Congregation of St. Joseph, as president-elect.

Dawn's Place is a yearlong program, but that is just the very start of the journey survivors are on, says Sr. Meaghan Patterson, executive director.

Among myriad services, the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center offers a monthly food pantry to hundreds of residents in Camden, New Jersey.

Former NBA star Charles Barkley is donating $1 million to St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans, a prominent Black Catholic school founded by the Sisters of the Holy Family. Barkley was inspired by the work of two academy graduates.

In statements and decrees posted to the Diocese of Fort Worth website, Bishop Michael Olson announced the Vatican accepted Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach's appeal and nullified her dismissal from the order of Carmelites.  

The Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, who co-founded and co-sponsor Benedictine College, have joined the chorus of voices denouncing remarks made by commencement speaker Harrison Butker.

A shareholder's resolution led by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace calls for Citigroup to examine its efforts to respect the human rights of Indigenous people in the projects it finances and invests in. 

 Sr. Teresita Weind was a founding member of the National Black Sisters' Conference, served on its board and many committees, and represented the conference on the board of the National Office of Black Catholics.
 

 These 10 years have flown by. If the next 10 are in any way as rich and fulfilling, I will have had a most amazing career, indeed, writes GSR national correspondent Dan Stockman. 

The apostolic visitation and doctrinal assessment were controversial, but 10 years after those tense times, sisters say their relationship with officials in Rome is radically different. 

The filing includes an affidavit from Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach warning that once the association of contemplative orders the Vatican appointed to govern the sisters is in control, it can do anything it wishes, including taking the monastery.

Global Sisters Report first interviewed Erickson in 2014 about the root causes of the immigration crisis. Flash forward 10 years, and everything is different while nothing has really changed.

"We are Christians, which means we don't have a choice. … That's how we're supposed to be recognized — by the way we love each other, by the way we love our neighbors."

Monday Starter: "Inaction in the face of this epidemic is unacceptable," Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati and other congregations said in a statement announcing a billboard message to end gun violence and promote peace. 

Network, the Catholic social justice lobby, is offering an online series that will address what it means to be a Catholic, multi-issue voter and how to engage people in challenging conversations about important issues. 

"We need to be touched, we need to be hugged and we need to be loved," says Sr. Rosalind Gefre, who from the mid-1990s to 2020 gave free massages at the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball games. 

In dozens of projects across the country, Catholic women religious are transitioning assets such as land and buildings into tools to meet other needs. 

The 11th Catholic Sisters Week features dozens of events that allow laypeople to connect with sisters and their ministries. Plans include a webinar on gun violence, a food drive, and spiritual exploration.

Sisters say the event was an opportunity for younger sisters to see each other, to know they are not alone and that they are part of something that goes beyond congregations and borders.