Three Stats and a Map - On Sept. 10, President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes in Syria in an effort to combat ISIL, the militant Islamist group that has taken over large portions of Iraq and driven Christians from their homes. Many religious leaders, including Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi International, decried military intervention in Syria, hoping instead for a peaceful diplomatic solution.

"I have noticed in all the serious circumstances of my life that nature always reflected the image of my soul."

Sr. Mary Nguyen Thi Hong Que, a member of Tam Hiep Dominican Sisters based in Bien Hoa City, southern Vietnam, heads the education program of the Ho Chi Minh City archdiocese’s Family Ministry Committee. She is a marriage guidance counselor, busy giving talks on leadership and life-coping skills to Catholic youths, women, lay leaders, priests and women religious throughout the country.

Benedictine Sr. Christine Vladimiroff, who as prioress in 2001 refused to follow a Vatican order that she prohibit another member of her community from speaking at a conference advocating ordination of women, died Sept. 25 at Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pa., following a long illness. She was 74.

GSR Today - You can join hundreds of women religious who have been sending letters of support to the immigrant families detained on the U.S. side of the border waiting for their hearings, with help from Catholic Legal Immigration Network.

Since 2006, large waves of refugees fleeing from brutal regimes in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia have made their way to Israel, surviving harrowing journeys with smugglers in harsh desert conditions. Altogether, there are approximately 55,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, 35,000 from Eritrea alone. Sr. Azezet Kidane of Comboni Sisters was honored for her role in exposing existence of torture camps in Sinai desert. Now, she must help her community heal.

See for Yourself - Recently I happened to be heading toward downtown Cincinnati on I-75 south. I couldn’t tell you how many hundreds of times I’ve driven on I-75, as this is one of two major expressways through the city. I-75 starts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and goes all the way to Florida, so Cincinnati is part of the north-south traverse of this major highway. 

"What if we were willing to shift our hold on our individual truth so as to affirm the emerging truth of the whole?"

Refugee children crossing our border and U.S. citizens trying to block them, Israelis and Palestinians, the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, Russians and Ukrainians, the Shias and the Shiites, Christian and Muslim. The list goes on as I ponder the atrocities that are continuing in the name of God, of country, of truth, of self-defense. In most cases there is no capacity to listen to the other, to engage the other, and so the stalemate continues and the violence increases. Locked into separate silos there is apparently no connection, no relationship. But I know that is not who we are or how we have to be. 

On October 3, I will be in Rome to participate in an international conference sponsored by the European Forum of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Christian Groups. The conference is planned to take place just prior to the general session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, Oct. 5-19, because one of the major areas of discussion at the synod will be same-sex couples and the education of their children.