Ninety-three Discalced Carmelite nuns in 24 countries have reached out of their cloistered monasteries to sing together in a virtual choir honoring St. Teresa of Avila on the 500th anniversary of her birth. This union of voices came together through the musical vision of a Carmelite Sister in Reno, Nev., and the creative imagination of a technical wizard in the Midwest. The result is two 6-minute videos of the sisters singing on a virtual stage, created by Kansas native Scott Haines.

Even before its Sept. 2 release, Jo Piazza’s book, If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission was on everyone’s lips – thanks, in part, to a glowing review from the New York Time’s Nick Kristof. The book, which started as a spinoff of Piazza’s master’s thesis on the ways women religious use social media, is the fruit of three years of reporting during which Piazza visited Catholic sisters Global Sisters Report got in touch with Piazza to discuss her book, her spiritual life and her belief that women religious are the perfect role models for young girls.

The federal government is pursuing its case against the Little Sisters of the Poor in an attempt to get the religious order to comply with newly issued interim rules regarding the Department of Health and Human Services' contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act.

Among people of traditional culture in southeastern Nigeria where I am from, and in other traditional African cultures, gender is not a fundamental organizing principle. Nor is human anatomy a major defining factor in gender relations. People here believe that being a man or a woman is generally irrelevant to individuals’ social roles and relationships. Rather, they perceive the individuals’ social power, as well as social role, as dependent mostly on age and seniority, position at birth, and their contributions to family and community development. The community recognizes anatomic female and male categories, but they are not a defining factor for social roles.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Are sisters conducting surveillance to find new recruits? A listener asks the sisters about that phenomenon. Global Sisters Report is delighted to share short clips from A Nun's Life Ministry's engaging shows, including “Ask Sister,” “In Good Faith” and “Motherhouse Road Trip.”

GSR Today - When it comes to comments from strangers, the Internet can be a vile and scary place for women. What’s nice about the Global Sisters Report is that: A) we don’t have a comments section (although you can comment on stories you like on our Facebook page); and B) our readers are, for the most part, civil.

 “Literacy is a key lever of change and a practical tool of empowerment on each of the three main pillars of sustainable development: economic development, social development and environmental protection.”

GSR Today - Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK lobby, is set to launch a new – the third – Nuns on the Bus tour next week. Global Sisters Report will be there covering the Sept. 17 kick off in Des Moines, Iowa, and our liaison to women religious in the U.S., Sr. Jan Cebula, OSF, will even be on the bus for the first five days of the tour.

This time it’s the Catholic sisters versus the Koch brothers. That’s one way to look at the upcoming Nuns on the Bus tour, which hits the road next week (Sept. 17) for the third time in three years, a month-long trip through 10 key U.S. Senate battleground states to campaign against the influence of outside money on politics.