Notre Dame de Namur Sr. Dorothy Stang’s persistent activism on behalf of Brazil’s poor and the earth is well known to environmental and social justice activists throughout the world. Thursday marks the 10-year anniversary of her death at the hands of hired guns.

In Vietnam, the cultural tradition is for younger relatives to take care of elderly family members, but sometimes people are left old and alone, due to feuds or other circumstances like war or natural disasters. In a country where 26 percent of the population will be over 60 years old by 2050, one congregation is helping 65 older women live with dignity and care. The Mater Pieta sisters operate three residential centers in and near Ho Chi Minh City and currently provide food, companionship and medical and spiritual care to people who would otherwise be homeless.

GSR Today - Bob Hope, Faith Hill, President George Bush and Tom Cruise have never had this problem. Anyone with an easy-to-spell-and-pronounce surname has no idea what the rest of us go through. So it’s likely that on February 13 they won’t be giving a second thought to national “Get a Different Name” day. On this clever day, anyone has the right to change his or her name to whatever they’d like it to be – for 24 hours.

In my research after Vatican II, I looked at the roles seen in the constitutions of religious communities. I found many interesting things, including how sisters completely changed the public attitude towards Catholicism by their Civil War nursing. But I think the most important insight – and the most depressing – had to do with the formal role definitions for nuns that are found in papal decrees that functioned as canon law. It turns out that the basis for the rules that required me to have a companion for my class, and kept me from attending Cardinal Koenig's lecture, dated back to 1298 and medieval Europe!

"For I rescued the poor who cried out for help, the orphans, and the unassisted; The blessing of those in extremity came upon me, and the heart of the widow I made joyful. I wore my honesty like a garment; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame."

GSR Today - My recent two-week journey through Kenya showed me that sometimes the best way to change negative perceptions is hard work, faith, and, most of all, patience.

Three Stats and a Map - If you have been paying any attention to U.S. news, you’re probably well aware that there’s a measles outbreak on the West Coast. The outbreak started in California, where – as of Monday – there were at least 123 reported cases of the measles in California, and according to the Los Angeles Times, the disease has now spread to seven other U.S. states and Mexico.

GSR Today - A gathering of the leadership of the world’s international women religious orders began to wind down Tuesday at a conference center in Nemi, Italy, as some 70 sisters hashed out what they had heard, learned and discerned in the course of a week together.

Dominican Sr. Donna Markham has been named the new leader of Catholic Charities USA. Like many women religious she has been noted for working on the systemic roots of problems, not just isolated issues. And that aspect of comprehensive problem-solving is one of the things Markham loves most about CCUSA, noting that the organization has been called not just a safety net for economically poor people, but also a trampoline to lift them out of poverty.