EarthBeat

Left without shelter or access to infrastructure following severe floods, Kenyans live in vulnerable conditions in camps for displaced people, where sisters regularly minister to them.

Throughout America and the world, thousands of religious sisters are daily witnessing to the environmental care commitment urged by Francis' 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si', and its 2023 sequel, Laudate Deum. It's a congregational concern that, for many of them, often predates the pontiff's writings — but the merging of their own environmental priorities with official papal pronouncements has helpfully amplified sisterly endeavors.

For the last three years, Religious Sisters of Charity have been involved in ensuring people have access to clean drinking water in rural Malawi with water pumps, as well as initiating irrigation farming.

Founded in 1999 with Passionist Fr. Thomas Berry, this Vermont community strives to be earth conscious and demonstrate an appreciation and reverence of God's creations.

From their sprawling provincialate in one of Bulawayo's quiet eastern neighbourhoods, the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood have turned to solar energy to run a thriving horticulture project.

With an eye to combating food insecurity, Sr. Joyce Meyer has formed a WhatsApp group of sisters from all over the world to share best practices and support one another in agriculture and business pursuits.

"There is much work to be done, much to change," writes Sr. Carmen Notario. "Let us not be afraid. We are links in a chain in a definitive historical moment where small patches are not enough; life is at stake."

After July 30 landslides swept away villages and a town in Wayanad, Kerala, India, Catholic sisters joined efforts to organize relief camps, offering school buildings, collecting aid and providing counseling.