It is a time of great uncertainty and of great promise. We share a powerful moment! Even the phrase “Global Sisters” makes my heart skip a beat. “Global” evokes a sense of the expansive, the far-reaching, the diverse. And to be a “Sister” is something intimate, something characterized by love, care – and an organic bond. What a beautiful mystery that this time allows both to be true, in innovative ways, for religious life.
Tracy Kemme is a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati who authored the blog Diary of a Sister-in-Training during formation. After a decade in social justice and Hispanic ministry, she is working toward her master's degree in pastoral ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
GSR Today - A week that saw one journalist revisiting his old Catholic grade school in San Francisco and sisters planning protests at the World Cup soccer event in Brazil was overshadowed by the death of one of two women religious attacked outside of a church in Malaysia.
A message of solidarity, peace and hope to the people of South Sudan, from the Religious Superiors Association of South Sudan - The 75 representatives of 29 Catholic Religious Congregations belonging to the RSASS issue a statement against violence in the country and call for a new solidarity of peace, in the wake of thousands dead and a million people displaced.
Commentary - At the inaugural National Catholic Sisters Week in March 2014, sisters and college students participated in a discussion about stereotypes and the need for sisters to tell their own stories – the mainstream media is not going to do it. One participant observed: "Once it was the religious who were intolerant; now it’s the secular mainstream's turn. The roles have simply reversed."
Molly Pyle earned her Ph.D. in Russian history from the University of Chicago in 1997. She then spent 10 years managing projects aiding Russia’s transition to a market economy. In 2007, she became the managing editor of the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal founded in the wake of 9/11 to provide balanced analysis on national security and constitutional liberties. She began working independently as an editor, writer and oral historian in 2012, having secured the sponsorship of the Journal by Georgetown Law.
LCWR's work should not be impeded or diminished. It needs to be encouraged and celebrated. We find a painful disconnect between how they are being treated and the church of encounter that Pope Francis preaches. We are knocking, waiting for your response.
Sr. Carol Perry, a Sister of St. Ursula, found a revelation in 1957 when she was allowed to study Scripture directly: for one thing, the Bible deals with flesh and blood human beings. For 34 years she has been bringing great storytelling skills of her own and her deeply informed passion for Scripture to groups at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, where her Sunday class – with Protestants and Catholics – is standing-room-only.
Retta Blaney is the author of Working on the Inside: The Spiritual Life through the Eyes of Actors, which features interviews with Kristin Chenoweth, Dudu Fisher, Edward Herrmann, Liam Neeson, Phylicia Rashad, Vanessa Williams and others. Her freelance work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Newsday, Jewish Week, American Theatre, Back Stage and other publications.
"Continue this labor and make sweet floods to run and noble and abundant fruits to spring."