A plethora of conferences about women have popped up all over Rome in the last three months. The Vatican's former hard-line freeze on discussing women's roles may at last be thawing out. The Pontifical Council for Culture's controversial February event, "Women's Cultures: Equality and Difference," was the first to break the ice. A month later, Voices of Faith hosted a searingly honest discussion by female theologians and activists from inside Vatican walls.

GSR Today - Even at a symposium studying the effect of the Second Vatican Council on women religious, it is difficult to overstate the effect the council had. Fifty years later, Catholics are still discovering – and often arguing over – those effects, how the council documents should be interpreted and what the whole business means.

"The shift from charity to development to a rights-based approach has been an unfolding restoration of the lost dignity and humanity of people."

The role of women religious in the Catholic church continues to vex not only sisters themselves but the scholars who study them. Friday, Notre Dame Sr. Mary Ann Foley told the audience at an international symposium on Catholic sisters that Pope Francis said: “The distinctive sign of women religious is prophecy” – or the ability to scrutinize current events and discern God’s call to answer them.

I had been living in Belize for only three months and had known Teresa for only two when I got the phone call: Her oldest son was in the hospital, and could I please come right away to be with them? I hopped on my bike and with some trepidation pedaled toward the hospital I had managed to avoid visiting until now: the understaffed and overcrowded public hospital which had the reputation (probably exaggerated) of turning out as many people dead as alive.

See for Yourself - Recently I was on the road driving from an out-of-town meeting late in the afternoon and headed across town to an evening rehearsal, so I decided to stop for a bite to eat. I wouldn't be anywhere close to home. It was an easy time of day with hardly any other customers, so I was waited on immediately by Kasandra.

Christian leaders in the Holy Land hope two new Palestinian saints will become intercessors for peace and a bridge among faiths: Blessed Marie-Alphonsine, born Soultaneh Maria Ghattas was born in Jerusalem in 1843 and is the founder of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Jerusalem, the first and still the only Palestinian women's religious congregation; Mariam Baouardy, a Melkite Catholic, was born in 1846 in the Galilee village of Ibillin and founded a Carmelite convent in India and one in Nazareth.

Kenyan officials are expecting more than 100,000 people at the May 23 beatification of Sr. Irene Stefani, an Italian member of the Consolata Missionary Sisters who cared for wounded and sick soldiers in Kenya and Tanzania during World War I. A Kenyan government official announced May 6 that the beatification would be a state function and would be accorded proper security.

On a recent visit to Rome, we received exceptional treatment because the papal winds have changed. During the previous two pontificates, there was not even any recognition for the lesbian and gay pilgrims I brought to papal audiences, let alone VIP seating. The special handling we received this time illustrates the Francis effect.