Chris Herlinger

Monday Starter: A bishop in the Democratic Republic of Congo failed to follow Vatican guidelines in dealing with allegations of a 2020 rape of a 14-year-old girl by a priest, The Washington Post has reported.

A new video released by the International Union of Superiors General features sisters who speak on the importance of including marginalized and vulnerable communities in dialogue regarding development.

Monday Starter: The Sisters of Mercy have denounced the fatal June 27 police shooting of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, in Akron, Ohio, and a mass shooting during a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

On the eve of the 11th anniversary of South Sudan's independence, a new book traces the history of Solidarity with South Sudan, noting that the collaborative 14-year-old ministry formed and run by female and male religious has been a model in humanitarian efforts across congregational lines. 

Reaction among Catholic women religious to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade included jubilation, acceptance and pledges to support women who are pregnant and to help with other women's issues.

Six women of the sovereign Shinnecock Indian Nation aim to protect the local bay on eastern Long Island from encroaching development. The women farm kelp in the bay waters, and have found allies in Catholic sisters.

Sr. Dorothy Hall, a member of the Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt and lifelong New York City resident, talks to GSR about her ministry of feeding the hungry in Harlem. "I don't think anyone should be hungry," she says.

In response to the gun deaths of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Texas, U.S. sisters' congregations added their voices to that of Pope Francis and other faith leaders in calling for stronger gun control efforts.

Monday Starter: "Building bridges with people, especially those most in need, is a call to be closer to those who need us and are waiting for us," outgoing president Sr. Jolanta Kafka said at the UISG assembly in Rome.

At the end of UISG plenary in Rome, sisters shared this pledge: "I commit myself to live vulnerable synodality through service as a leader, animating it within the community, together with the people of God."

Pope Francis told leaders of women religious congregations that synodality is a way to affirm the original intentions of the founders of religious congregations while meeting the needs of a rapidly changing world.

Speaking to leaders of women's congregations gathered in Rome, Jessie Rogers said if the faithful "hold on too tightly to how God acted in the past, they might overlook the new thing that God is doing in the present."

The International Union of Superiors General has begun distributing a $1 million grant by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to assist women's religious communities as they serve refugees who have fled the war in Ukraine.

Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz praised the International Union of Superiors General for years of commitment to acting in a synodal way. Braz de Aviz spoke May 3, the second day of the group's triennial plenary.

Hundreds of sisters from six continents are in Rome for the triennial plenary of the International Union of Superiors General, the organization's first major in-person event since the start of the pandemic.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is focusing on the ways extractive industries harm Indigenous people and their lands. Rarely do industries seek Indigenous consent, speakers said.

Georgetown University will host a public dialogue May 3 on the legacy of Sr. Thea Bowman. The Jesuit institution is renaming the chapel in Bowman's honor at the university's Copley Hall.

During recent congressional testimony about the pending U.S. Farm Bill, Bill O'Keefe of Catholic Relief Services said the war in Ukraine is compounding already-existing problems of global hunger.

As the world seeks normalcy in the COVID-19 pandemic's third year, leaders and experts urge vaccination and vigilance amid complacency, vaccine opposition, economic hardship, and inequalities in vaccine access.

"We are fine," Basilian Sr. Anna Andrusiv told Global Sisters Report April 6. "But we are also terrified, too. Deep inside all of us knew [something like this] would happen: murders, raping, this kind of horror."