Dominican Sr. Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, challenged the group of students, professors and clergy in her audience March 12 at Georgetown University's Dahlgren Chapel to a thought experiment. Making them visualize the story of the good Samaritan, she asked them to graft it onto their own lives, imploring, "Who is lying by the side of the road?" and later, "Am I one of the priests or Levites who passed by?"

Veteran theologians and young seminary students who gathered at a public event March 10 at the Mary Louis Academy in the New York City borough of Queens to discuss accomplishments and ongoing challenges for female theologians and biblical scholars.

With the director a "none" — a religiously unaffiliated millennial — herself, the 2015 film about three U.S. sisters made a fitting centerpiece for attendees of the Washington event during National Catholic Sisters Week.

Since March 2009, when Sr. Martha Park Byongsuk first came to the Bus-Park slum of Pokhara, Nepal, life has improved for its impoverished residents. Byongsuk and fellow sisters have connected them with medical care; they also have launched St. Paul's Happy Home, a place for children to go after school, eat a meal, bathe and study.

At a recent visit to a botanical garden I saw two trees that are a living witness to me of my need for a deeper awakening to the cycles of life and my awe at a very inscrutable process: the co-dependent evolution of life and death which is in me, my church, my country and my world.

The crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane bound for Nairobi, Kenya, killed 157 people, including Our Lady of the Angels Sr. Florence Wangari, Mariannhill Fr. George Mukua Kageche, and four Ethiopian staff working with Catholic Relief Services.

From Where I Stand: There are some things that simply must be borne. There are some mountains in life that must be climbed but can only be climbed one boulder, one level at a time. 

Notes from the Field - I've been reflecting on the stimuli that shape my headspace as we approach the 63rd U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, with its focus on public infrastructure.

After Francis' admission of the issue of clergy abuse of nuns, Catholics are urging him to act firmly against abusers, especially in India, where supporters of a nun who has accused a bishop of rape find themselves censured by church authorities.

The sister from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana explains how the idea to offer a retreat for mothers originated at a family Thanksgiving — and why we should all act more like the alpacas at the sisters' eco center.