by Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans
Contributor
Last summer, Sr. Melinda Pellerin stood before friends and parishioners at Holy Name Parish in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she serves as a pastoral minister, and professed her first vows as a Sister of St. Joseph of Springfield. Pellerin — then 57, a widow and retired — made history as the congregation's first African-American sister.
by GSR Staff
"You must go to the people and really understand their needs. If you do that, people can change."
Betty Ann Maheu is a Maryknoll Sister with degrees in drama, theology, Italian and Chinese. She spent 18 years in Hawaii teaching and doing education administration before serving on the Maryknoll leadership team then with the International Union of Superiors General as a coordinating editor and translator for the UISG main publication (Bulletin). A frequent traveler to China, she has taught English there and for 15 years served at the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong.
by Brenna Neimanis
Contributor
Notes from the Field - Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows that I like noise. The weekend of May 14, all of the East Coast Good Shepherd volunteers spent their time at a retreat center in New Jersey. This particular retreat happened to be a Silent Spirituality Retreat, which could also be referred to as my worst nightmare.
by GSR Staff
"Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society."
Because of my ministries I have never lived near relatives or my grade school friends as their children grew up. Recently my cousin moved to Lansing, Michigan, not too far from Detroit. One of her many grandchildren was making his first Holy Communion, and I was invited to attend. I accepted, and as I drove on this beautiful Saturday morning I found myself filling up with tears.
GSR Today - In working for peace — in assisting refugees from both Syria and Iraq with no partiality as far as religious affiliation, for example — Nassif and other women religious I met in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, and in Jordan, see life with a different lens than most of us.
Daughters of Charity Sr. Abeba Hadgu, 50, looks on with pride at the food-preparation class. Since 1992, more than 2,000 young women have graduated from the congregation's six-month women's empowerment program in food preparation or sewing. Even the current teacher, Bedla Solomon, is a successful product of the empowerment course. She graduated from the food-preparation program six years ago, gained experience working for the Filippini Sisters in the nearby town of Adigrat, and returned to teach this class.
by Joshua J. McElwee
Catholic sisters could be of greater service to the church in various parts of the world were they able to "go a step further" and be ordained as deacons, says Sr. Carmen Sammut, president of the International Union of Superiors General, the global network of some 500,000 Catholic women religious.
by J. Malcolm Garcia
Contributor
The Marlin mine began operations in 2005 in the regions of San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa, Guatemala, bringing jobs and prosperity to some residents, but changing the landscape and the social fabric of the indigenous community. It is slated to cease operations, renewing issues about true costs of its operation.
