"Love will always be victorious. The one who loves can do everything."
A group of 167 Catholics in India, including more than 80 sisters, have signed a letter urging that Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a nun in 2014, be removed from pastoral duties.
Indian officials are seeking to freeze bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity following the arrest of a nun on child trafficking charges in Jharkhand state.
Counting on her fingers to keep track of points in an ice-breaker game she was playing with a young woman at the Fiat Days discernment retreat, an aspirant for the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco rattled off the names of various scents from the Bath & Body Works collection: "Cucumber Melon," "Lavender Vanilla," "Country Apple."
You can understand a lot about a particular group of people by getting to know their proverbs. From my time in South Africa, I remember one saying in particular that shines a light on African culture.
The overwhelming majority of those pursuing vocations in Catholic religious life in the church were born into the faith. But a small, steady stream of men and women choose first to become Catholic and then, in what is perhaps an even larger leap of faith, choose religious life itself.
"There is no American or Guatemalan. There is no English-speaker or Mam-speaker. There is no immigrant or citizen. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We belong to Christ and one another."
Jacqueline Small works for Monasteries of the Heart and Benetvision, ministries of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, which offer resources for contemporary spirituality with a global audience. She completed a master's degree in divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2016 and a master's degree in social work at Rutgers University in 2017.
Dominican Sr. Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, grew emotional talking about the harrowing stories she heard from immigrants about the life they left behind to seek refuge in the United States.
Jean Evans is a Sister of Mercy from California. She ministered for 28 years in South Africa, where she worked in Johannesburg with victims of the apartheid regime — teaching and administering three vocational centers, and teaching high school in Soweto. Back in the U.S., she is currently doing substitute teaching, spiritual direction and grant writing.