Chris Herlinger

To save precious natural resources like the Hudson River Valley, humans must stop claiming dominance over all of creation. "We can’t keep putting man at the top," Sister of Charity Carol De Angelo said during a fall boat tour. "We're very much part of an ecosystem, and it's hard to restructure what is entrenched."

Few years have felt as connected to the previous one as 2021 — largely because the global pandemic of 2020 continued this year. Amid COVID-19 and other challenges, sisters served with commitment and care. Here is a rundown of 2021 as chronicled in Global Sisters Report.

As executive director of New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light, Franciscan Sr. Joan Brown's work focuses on the need to both end environmental damage and find solutions for sustainable energy and employment.

Catholic sisters in the U.S. are working to assist displaced Afghans resettle. Some sisters work directly with refugees. Others are readying places for them to stay. Some are packing toiletries and other needed goods.

Maryknoll Sr. Patricia Ryan's nearly five decades of ministry defending human rights was recently recognized by Peru's National Coordinating Committee for Human Rights. She spoke to GSR about the rights of Indigenous people and exploitation of their land.

Sisters' community-supported agriculture farms allow congregations to live out their values. They also model a just transition toward a more eco-friendly approach to producing and sharing food and providing alternative to mass-produced, profit-driven corporations.

Sisters agree the recent COP26 summit did not go as far as they would have liked, but they plan to keep working toward climate action. "The church has a voice. And it should use that voice," a speaker said during a webinar on the summit. "It's an act of care."

Seven Catholic sister congregations last week announced that they are divesting from fossil fuels as part of what faith-based groups said is the largest single divestment declaration. "We can only uphold the dignity of all when we uphold the dignity of the earth where we live," said Erie Benedictine Sr. Anne McCarthy.

Catholic sisters and organizations are working on a just transition to a sustainable planet through actions to fight climate change and to move workers away from jobs that contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions say the transition is moral, practical and imperative.

"History has its eyes on you. History has its eyes on us," Sr. Carol Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said during an Oct. 12 event at U.S. Capitol. Faith leaders were  calling for Congress to pass President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" legislation.

Loreto Sr. Imelda Poole participated in an Oct. 14 panel discussion about empowering young people to help fight modern slavery. A longtime advocate for abolishing modern day slavery, she was named a U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report Hero in July.

GSR Today - The pandemic has laid bare the serious shortcomings of the global food system, and there is a sense of urgency for World Food Day 2021, with calls for meaningful change — including personal change.

In joining the Laudato Si' Action Platform, the Congregation of Bon Secours "hopes to be part of the critical mass needed to create a global paradigm shift which is nothing short of a transformation of our relationship with Earth," the community said.

U.S. Catholic sisters and congregational representatives, decrying border agent abuses and deportation of Haitian asylum seekers, call for immigration reform that will embrace humane policies and practices.

GSR Today - When 9/11 happened, my experiences in Afghanistan got mixed in with my own reactions as an American and a New York City resident — reactions that were all over the map. I was shocked, saddened and angered.

The Aug. 14 earthquake in southern Haiti poses yet another serious challenge to the work of a Haiti-based congregation that had been struggling before the latest disaster. "I don't know what I can say. The problems sometimes seem too big," Sr. Denise Desil said.

The swift spread of the delta variant and the threat of new variants add new challenges for Catholic sisters and humanitarian leaders working in countries already facing difficulties, including hunger, social unrest and other longstanding health problems like malaria and HIV/AIDS.

The Leviticus Fund, a community development lender created by a group of religious leaders, has invested more than $142 million since 1983 in projects that address poverty. Its new Legacy Fund is creating a pool of capital based on donations, not investments, and will follow the same mission.

In agreeing to get vaccinated, "Catholic health care professionals working in hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities and in the community give witness to Christ's call to love one another," Mercy Sr. Mary Haddad, president of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said in a July 23 statement.