From NCRonline.org - The CEO of a packaging company in California provides first-hand perspective on the costs of immigration raids to American businesses.

St. Anges Sr. Dianne Bergant: “Never underestimate how quickly the People of God can turn a corner. Some say we have not come far. But don’t forget what we’ve done. The lives of women and men in the Bible are now being appreciated as people called to be faithful, as people whose lives have messages for us, and not just characters to appear in some Hollywood movie.”

From NCRonline.org - The Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education has appointed a woman,  Franciscan Sr. Mary Melone, to lead one of Rome's seven pontifical universities, the special academic institutions established directly under the authority of the pope.

Around the world, more than 168 million child laborers are at work, and 1.75 million of them live in Vietnam. Catholic nuns there are doing what they can to chip away at this contributing factor to ongoing poverty by encouraging families to keep children in school – often providing financial support to make this possible.

It's summer and time for my annual retreat. Talk to any nun. Most of us would rather forego our vacations than miss this precious interlude of quality time with the One who got us into this mess to begin with. Most years, I go to a quaint hermitage on the bucolic grounds of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine near Ohio's Amish country.

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. . . ."

"The beauty of universality is that the church is able to speak to people in whatever language they understand best – and we’re not just talking about verbal language."

Birth control access - June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that certain companies are not legally obligated to cover certain birth control types for employees if doing so violates the company’s religious beliefs. While American Christians generally support  a company’s right to be exemption from contraception coverage on religious grounds (55 percent of Catholics and 51 percent of Protestants agree), the topic has been widely debated, usually in terms of religious rights vs. women’s rights.

Sr. Cova Orejas, a Carmelite Sister of Charity, Vedruna, spent three years Lainé refugee camp in southeastern Guinea, where knowing refugee women, her teachers, was a gift from God.