In 2003, Dinknesh Amanuel was a strange sight at the Capuchin Theological Seminary at the main cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In a sea of priests, she was the first female student at the seminary. Amanuel is a member of the Maids of the Poor, a secular institute in Ethiopia.

GSR Today - There's been a sort of revolution spreading across the country. It's one that has been badly needed for decades and one that I honestly thought would never happen.

"Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one."

"The structured injustice of war, violence, sexual exploitation of women and girls, and the rape of Mother Earth at times seems overwhelming. Yet we stand facing these injustices not in despair but in hope."

West Africa's flagship universal health care plan, held up as a model for developing countries, has an eight-month delay paying back health institutions, forcing one Catholic hospital to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy  and look for enterprise services to earn extra operating capital.

"Does the government interfere with your work?" the foreign visitor asked Hà. "I just heard one of the children call you 'Sister.' Does the government know that you're a religious sister, and still they let you work here?" As a Maryknoll missionary working in China, Ngoc Hà Pham, like every Maryknoll Sister, including myself, who has worked in China, has answered those questions repeatedly.

In a little less than a month I'll make my first profession. The date has been chosen, and the invitations have been sent. The liturgy is planned. And I'm not sure I'm ready.

See for Yourself - A colleague returned to work following foot surgery and it was great to welcome him back. Without crutches or a cane, he hobbled around sporting a hardshell white "boot" that immobilized his lower leg, ankle and foot.

"I am often angry. I don't accept criminality, death, torture, bombings. I can't cope with that. I have a desire to see something else. I am impatient. I want the Kingdom now. I want the peace now."

It is May, and like every good Catholic girl of a certain age, I remember this as the month we celebrate Mary, the mother of Jesus. A lot of terrific recent scholarship is helping my generation recover from earlier interpretations of Mary as a revered (if impossible to imitate) virgin-mother role model often portrayed as silent, passive, and obedient.