GSR Today - As we in the Global North search for ways to expand our consciousness of ourselves as part of a global religious life, we need to continue to commit ourselves to finding new and effective ways to assist our sisters worldwide to become the “New women of the old faith” in their countries as our foremothers did in ours.

Katy Donchik, 17, not only travels around the world to volunteer, but was also student body president, a varsity softball player and star of her high school musical. Oh, and she wants to help people AND animals when she grows up.

In the past 20 years, what has become all the more clear is that there is a critical need for the prophetic voice of all people in the church and the world – a need to which women religious have responded decisively. The call for women religious and for the community of faith to be a corporate prophetic voice to address injustice throughout the world is clarion.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Sr. Margaret Nacke, CSJ, and Sr. Ann Oestreich, IHM, talk about human trafficking, the role of poverty in the traffficking of women and men worldwide, and efforts being made to end trafficking.

For more than a dozen years, Sr. Ephrem Nguyen Thi Luu has been working with hundreds of families who have lived on small boats on rivers for generations in Hue City, central Vietnam. She is so commonly known among them that they call her “Me Luu” (Grandma Luu) instead of Sr. Luu. Sr. Luu, who was born to a Buddhist family in nearby Da Nang City, joined the Saint Paul de Chartres Sisters in 1960 and has served the disadvantaged for 40 years. 

GSR Today - Last fall, Pope Francis famously declared unfettered capitalism to be tyrannical, and he decried our tendency to idolize money. In many companies, this obsession with wealth and profits manifests itself as tyranny against the workers. Christian consumers have a moral and theological imperative to care about who makes our clothing and how companies we support value people.

"Practicing forgiveness does not mean accepting wrong doing."

The Bethlehem Live Festival, organized by the Holy Land Trust on June 20, is a cheerful street festival originally intended to bring attention to the neglected street and raise awareness about its needs; it also focuses on faith, justice and culture. Workshops and panels such as nonviolence and nonlinear leadership were part of the festival schedule. An art gallery exhibited works by local artists, and an open-mic cafe allowed young local artists and performers to be seen and heard. Eight international bands were to perform on nights of the festival.

Last fall, Maryknoll Sr. Helene O'Sullivan launched a program in Phnomh Penh that provides basic education and intensive job training for formerly trafficked women and girls so they can get good-paying jobs in the hotel industry, not low-wage "pink-collar" jobs working in barbershops, factories or vegetable markets.

Sisters providing no-interest loans, a rare medieval convent (c. 1180 AD) uncovered in Wales, and a popular Spanish model who has decided to join the Order of St. Michael after an "earthquake" experience on a visit to Fatima, Portugal, are some of the stories circulating other news outlets this week.