GSR Today - Women’s voices are still shockingly underrepresented in the media, so it is absolutely essential that female reporters and editors be willing to push for stories that are both for women and about women – not because we aren’t “smart enough” to think outside of ourselves or because female audiences only care about female issues, but because our perspective matters.

For Syria’s three-year armed conflict to come to an end, all foreign fighters and the external powers that support them must first leave the country, said Mother Agnes Mariam, a Carmelite nun in Syria, during a public lecture April 29 at Saint Mary’s College of California. That departure, she said, would allow the Syrian people the safety to resolve their political differences through non-violent negotiations.

Benedictine Sr. Barbara McCracken is a longtime member of Mount St. Scholastica of Atchison, Kan. Her ministry has been primarily in Kansas City. Currently she is an associate director of Keeler Women's Center which provides programs and services for inner-city women. Her past ministries include peace and justice consultant for the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, a staff member of Shalom Catholic Worker House, providing hospitality to homeless men, and doing justice and nonviolence education in parishes.

by Nancy Wiechec

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Young people living on the Arizona side of the U.S.-Mexican border are inspired by Minim Daughters of Mary Immaculate and the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist  to cross over to volunteer their time at an aid center for deported migrants in Nogales, Sonora, that is part of the Catholic-run Kino Border Initiative.

Freelance journalist and photographer Nancy Wiechec is a veteran Catholic media professional based in the Phoenix, Ariz., area. She is formerly of Catholic News Service in Washington, D.C. In 2013 she was a finalist for the St. Francis de Sales award, given by the Catholic Press Association for outstanding contributions to journalism. Follow her @nancywiechec on Twitter.

This story appears in the Apostolic Visitation feature series. View the full series.

Three Boston College professors, Sr. Jean Bartunek, Simona Giorgi and Sr. Margaret Guider, recently published their study on the effects of the Apostolic Visitation on U.S. women religious as seen through the lens of organizational theory; their findings explore the concept of "productive resistance," a concept with wider implications than just within consecrated life.