We Catholic women and men religious at the U.N. consider ourselves “gadflies” who remind the U.N. delegates to be faithful to the post-world war United Nations Charter, which was based on peace, justice and human rights. Our particular NGO (non-governmental organization), UNANIMA International, is a coalition of 19 different congregations of women religious – 20,000 of us, in over 80 countries. At the United Nations we join the representatives of over 100 Catholic congregations of men and women religious with a presence in more than 153 countries and hundreds of other faith-based NGOs from all over the world.

From NCR - A Vatican event Sunday saw a remarkably open and frank discussion among women about the limits on their participation in church structures in what may have been the first such public conversation ever to take place at the center of the Catholic hierarchy. Among the topics the women discussed at the event, held to mark International Women's Day: the need for the church to practice what it preaches about full equality between men and women, to include women in every level of decision-making, and to use inclusive language in its worship.

GSR Today - The big, big news this week is not what’s happening in Liberia, but what isn’t happening. There has not been a new case of Ebola reported in Liberia in 12 days.

Take another look - When six Catholic nuns from St. Louis boarded a chartered plane headed for Selma, Alabama, in the early morning hours of March 10, 1965, they had no idea they were about to change their own destinies and the lives of many U.S. women religious. Their actions helped propel Catholic sisters into a new era that forever changed the face of religious life and would inevitably redefine how sisters understood and acted upon social justice issues for the rest of the century.

Fifty years ago in USA, voting rights became an iconic issue representing social exclusion. While Negros (the racial designation used in the 1950s and into ‘60s) had the right to vote by law, local ordinances and procedures in many states rendered them disqualified and excluded – the core of injustice. The film “Selma” has drawn national attention to the turbulent times of civil rights activism, political strategies, ideal hopes and still-shocking violence. It clearly shows how those who hold power can consciously and actively exclude those they deem unfit or unworthy of social participation.

Oct. 6, 1965: A poem by Sr. Anne Mary, O.P.

April 7, 1965: A Roman Catholic nun was scheduled to speak at a Methodist religious service by way of a tape recording after a “misunderstanding” halted plans for her personal appearance. The nun, Sister Alexine of the Sisters of St. Joseph, taped an account of her experience as a volunteer nurse at Good Samaritan hospital in Selma, Ala. The recording was to be played during the offertory at the Sunday services at Central Methodist Church in downtown Detroit.

May 5, 1965: Charges made in Congress that “degeneracy, drunkenness and sex orgies were the order of the day” for civil rights demonstrators before, during and after the Selma-to-Montgomery march were given the lie this week by religious leaders who spoke as eyewitnesses. Among these was the only Roman Catholic nun who made the march. She is Sister Mary Leoline Sommer, a tall, serene Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary stationed in Kansas City whose Route 80 sunburn has now turned to a tan. She went to Washington Monday on a trip paid for by friends to join eight others in trying to convince Representative William L. Dickinson (R. Ala.) that his charges of immorality were untrue.

March 24, 1965 Editorial: Even In The pluperfect North, not everybody is happy about the role played by clergy and religious in the Selma demonstrations. Diocesan papers across the country are getting indignant letters protesting their participation. In the chancery office at Kansas City, Mo., the device that receives and records telephone messages during off hours was jammed with verbal protests after the week end of the great Selma demonstration. For the Sisters, though, there was another kind of criticism. Many people apparently don’t believe that Sisters should be mixed up in things like this, that it isn’t proper for them.