Ministry

On Sept. 30, Pope Francis met with a delegation of women at the Vatican who presented voices from the Amazon region and around the world.

In Cordova and Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island, the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Mother of God support the education of children and offer livelihood training to their parents in poverty.

Sister Mary Lisa Renfer, a Religious Sister of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, is the medical director of St. Mary's Legacy Clinic, a ministry of the Diocese of Knoxville.

Catholic sisters in India have enhanced their youth ministry, with the aim to bring young people closer to the church, "understanding and accepting them as they are with their dreams, weaknesses and strengths."

After she received letters from Hispanic inmates asking for spiritual materials in Spanish while in U.S. prisons and jails, Sr. Elsa Narváez Rodríguez in Boston began evangelizing to them by mail.

"To draw others to God," writes Sr. Rosemary Wanyoike, "we must fully immerse ourselves in ministry to bring out the best in another person while also transforming ourselves."

When three Loreto Sisters from Ireland arrived in Rumbek, South Sudan, in 2006, only 13 girls were in secondary education in the capital of Lakes State. The sisters opened the first secondary school for girls in 2008 with 35 students. Eighteen years later over 500 girls have graduated from Loreto Rumbek and many are now completing a post-secondary education.

"The church has always been in spaces with people in extremely fragile situations, always," said Sister Idília Carneiro, the new superior general of the Sisters Hospitallers, and as global rates of mental illness continue to rise, she insisted that Catholics have an obligation to expand their ministries in addressing the crisis.