The U.S. District Court is a modern edifice less than a block away from the iconic Liberty Bell. Throughout the month of June, the Hon. Judge Joel Slomsky heard a case in a courtroom on the nearby district court’s 15th floor. In the absence of a jury it will fall to this judge to decide the fate of David Paul Hammer who is undergoing a retrial for the murder he committed (allegedly by accident) in a Pennsylvania prison 18 years ago.

Among Vietnam’s 54 distinct groups with their own language and cultural heritage, 53 of them are ethnic minorities making up less than 15 percent of the national population; however, they account for almost 50 percent of the poor. They are isolated and have limited assets, low levels of education and poor health conditions. Seeing a great need in the Central Highlands, three young nuns of the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Phan Thiet established their community at Bien Ho village near Pleiku City last year.

GSR Today - On July 17 and 18 the Catholic Volunteer Network will explore connections between full-time service and religious life by hosting the “From Service to Sisterhood Symposium” in Chicago.

Sr. Jean Fallon spent more than 20 years as a missionary working in parish ministries in Japan, where she became intimately acquainted with the needs of a people devastated by the atomic bomb. Since then, she has co-authored two books on peace and the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and she has been a tireless advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons. She is part of the Maryknoll delegation to the United Nations.

From NCRonline.org - An in-depth profile of Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio, who has written for Global Sisters Report and is, as Jamie Manson writes in this Grace on the Margins column, "The rare theologian with doctoral degrees in both science and religious studies. But at her heart, she is a teacher. She longs for you to see what she sees: the vast interconnectedness of human beings, God, and the universe."

Three stats and a map - In the last few months, the number of unaccompanied child migrants coming to the U.S. from Central America has reached a crisis point. Since fiscal year 2011, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border has increased 142 percent, causing an uptick in the religious and humanitarian groups dealing with the issue.

Sr. Virginia McCall, a Presentation Sister from Aberdeen, S.D., serves in Kaoma, in Zambia’s western province. The focus of her ministry is to empower people though education, farming training, micro-financing and other projects.

"There are different types of stealing, since stealing is the taking of things belonging to another aginst the owner’s will. . . ."

Two Iraqi nuns and three orphans kidnapped in late June have been released safely, according to the Christian rights group Middle East Concern. The group, citing Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako, said the five were released July 14 without anyone paying ransom

There is a century-long history of Catholic sisters' being the ministers of healthcare for the people of Nigeria. Women who access the mission healthcare facilities invariably attach themselves to the religious faith of the missionaries, and these early networks of maternity clinics and dispensaries did more to bring people to the faith than any preaching from the pulpit. Today, the number of religious in the professional medical fields appears insignificant to Nigeria’s population of more than 120 million people. Yet the quality of service the sisters render, particularly in the rural areas, remains unquantifiable.