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by Dorothy Fernandes

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For over 16 years I have worked on a campaign for shelter rights for the urban poor of Patna. After we had worked so long to get the administration and government of India to listen to the pleas of people on the periphery, an opportune time finally arrived. 

Nancy Westmeyer is a Third Order Regular Franciscan from Tiffin, Ohio. Besides giving workshops, missions and retreats around the U.S., much of her ministry in Ohio has included teaching and parish ministry, working as a diocesan director of pastoral services, and serving as the executive director for a pastoral alliance of 16 parishes committed together to renew their parishes. She started a 501(c)(3) organization, Vision Time, to lead parish missions, priests' retreats and parish renewal workshops, and to provide leadership assistance with structural change for small businesses.

Missionaries of Charity nuns in India celebrated the birthday of their order's founder, St. Teresa of Kolkata, three years after her canonization, breaking a Catholic convention in which only a saint's feast day  normally the anniversary of death  is celebrated. But Mother Teresa's birthday was a major celebration in the house when she was alive, and the nuns continue that today.

Several women's religious orders, individual women religious and Catholic organizations such as Pax Christi and Jesuit Refugee Service were among more than 500 religious leaders and groups who signed an Aug. 23 letter to President Donald Trump urging his administration not to go through with plans to possibly end the country's refugee resettlement program.