Soli Salgado

The destinations that beckon each sister or community will determine the vessel they choose, said Sr. Jayne Helmlinger in her presidential address before a virtual audience of 1,000 sisters and guests.

Before she became an Adrian Dominican sister at age 50, Elise García already lived a life engaged in social justice issues, advocacy and nonprofits. Now at 70, she is the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious takes its annual assembly online Aug 12-14. Sisters must preserve the in-person assembly's meditative, inspiring element as they reexamine their role in today's world.

Decades in nonviolence and anti-racism work has prepared Sr. Patricia Chappell for this tense moment in United States history, as her lifelong passions have become part of mainstream conversation in the country. Chappell, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, has long been involved in anti-racism work, helping religious communities confront the systemic racism within their congregations.

Just before a break-in triggered their bookstore's security alarm around 11 p.m. May 30, the Pauline sisters poked their heads outside their building on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, where they live on the floor above the Chicago Pauline Books and Media shop.

Women religious in the United States are responding to the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests engulfing cities by affirming the Black Lives Matter movement, acknowledging their congregations' history of white supremacy and personal white privilege, and calling for peaceful and concrete action toward racial justice.

The National Day of Mourning and Lament came with the backdrop of major cities recovering from weekend riots in response to the death of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.

When she set out to make documentary films about monastic life, Julie McElmurry knew she wanted to portray sisters differently. She wanted to "go through their front door and into their individual lives."

The National Day of Mourning and Lament, as the interfaith coalition is calling it, is an effort to "make visible that which you can't make visible, which is the depth of the loss that these individual families are feeling, and the sheer number of loss that the country is feeling," said St. Joseph of Philadelphia Sr. Carol Zinn, executive director of LCWR.

Hundreds of sisters around the world joined the online session, "Re-Imagining the Future: Religious Life in the United States," during which LCWR leaders discussed shift in structures, membership, ministries and sustainability.

The earthquake that struck Puerto Rico Jan. 7 damaged over 8,000 houses, leaving 2,500 uninhabitable. Thousands of people now live in tents, awaiting home repairs or afraid that their houses may cave in.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is hearing from some sisters in congregational leadership, who worry that his open admiration of President Trump communicates wider approval on behalf of the Catholic Church.

At the 50-bed Home of the Good Shepherd in San Juan, Puerto Rico, homeless men and women with a history of drug abuse are welcome to stay so long as their recovery journey focuses on drug abstinence.

Sisters have long supported migrants and immigrants living in the United States. But a "ministry of presence" isn't possible during a pandemic, and sisters have had to reinvent their ministries.

For four years, Nuns and Nones has been cultivating an intergenerational community of women religious and spiritually curious millennials, taking on the existential questions now plaguing the rest of the world.

In a conversation with Global Sisters Report, Mercy Sr. Eileen Boffa of Bridgeport, Connecticut, reflected on the impact economically poor individuals have had on her life, how the lack of social support feeds a cycle of homelessness, and her new appreciation for beauty.

Gentle, a Sister of Charity of Nazareth, runs a ministry that focuses on five dimensions of well-being among the elderly in Belize City: housing, social supports, food access, medical care, and transportation.

"The Sisters of Providence out of Montreal have been at this for 175 years, and we have never changed our mission. We realize that we have to pay close attention to the formation and mission integration with our laypeople."

With renowned cartoonists and artists contributing, the project aims to raise awareness and funds to help sisters reintegrate survivors of trafficking back into society, with all proceeds going to Talitha Kum.

Sister of the Divine Savior Jean Schafer was inspired in the late 1990s to inform more people about human trafficking and, after the International Union of Superiors General released its first public declaration calling on religious women to work on behalf of this vulnerable population, she started a monthly newsletter. After 17 years, she is handing it off to two other sisters.