Sr. Luke Boiarski is director of the disaster recovery team for the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky, which uses sisters, associates and lay volunteers to aid those in need, whether they are nearby (West Point is about 35 miles from the congregation's motherhouse in Nazareth) or as far away as Belize, where they have made several trips to help build houses.

This story appears in the Crisis in the Church feature series. View the full series.

by Nicole Trahan

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Horizons: I finally had the courage to start reading the grand jury report out of Pennsylvania. It rocked my world. It colors the way I listen to the prayers of the liturgy and how I read official church statements or documents. It has shifted the way I speak and think about the church. The crisis is the lens through which I view parish and diocesan life. My mind turns over and over, searching for root causes and trying to reason out solutions. And while I am certainly no expert on this, I keep coming back to one thing: clericalism.

A conference marking 50 years since a historic Catholic gathering in Colombia kept its focus on the anniversary, which some considered a missed opportunity to address the present-day injustice of abuse. But the Confederation of Latin American Religious meeting that followed did not shy away from the crisis, with a call for "a new way to be a church."

Every day, Sr. Elsie Vadakkekara of the Sisters of St. Ann of Providence heads out to bring meals to people with mental illness who are found abandoned on roads in India. The septuagenarian Catholic sister has won the hearts of local people, mostly Hindus. For Vadakkekara, the work has transformed her: "Now I see the face of Jesus in everyone."

GSR Today - During the World Meeting of Families last week, signs that Ireland has indeed moved on from the church of their childhood years could be seen clearly in Dublin's streets, and heard in the voices of the taxi drivers who navigate them.

Maria Cecilia Sierra Salcido is from Mexico and has been a member of the Comboni Missionary Sisters for 32 years. She has lived in the United States, Italy, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, and Guatemala. With a background in communications, theology, and nonprofit management, she has contributed to the establishment of sustainable organizations in communities affected by poverty, social conflict and cultural diversity. Presently, she works at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Richmond, Virginia, and in February 2023 hopes to continue missionary life in the eastern Arab world.