UCA News

Mother Eliswa Vakayil, known as a champion of women's rights, founded the first Indigenous Carmelite religious order for women known as the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites in 1866.

Plus, cloistered Illinois sisters adopt solar energy; an Indian court denies bail for a nun facing arrest after she was accused of conversion; services held for slain Haitian sisters.

There has been a series of sex abuse and suicide cases involving Catholic nuns in recent years. 

Catholic officials have welcomed a ruling by the top court in Tamil Nadu state, in southern India, reaffirming the autonomy of higher education institutions run by religious minority groups.

The legal cell of Catholic lawyer-priests and nuns has vowed to extend help to Indian minorities, including Christians, as persecution against them increases in India.

As executive director of Caritas Nepal, Sr. Durga Cecilia Shrestha is the first woman to head a national unit in South Asia.

Sr. Josefina Albuquerque has earned accolades with an award-winning short film. Her seven-minute film, which was shot on a simple mobile phone, has also been selected for screening at an upcoming online film festival.

A court in the Philippine capital Manila acquitted 10 members of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, including two nuns, from perjury charges Jan. 9.

For Sr. Tireza Gabriel Usamo, a 38-year-old Catholic nun from Ethiopia, the climate and customs of Mongolia have been a constant challenge since she arrived there as a missionary.

Catholic nuns from a missionary religious order in the Philippines have denounced a criminal charge by the state accusing them of financing terrorism and violating the country's anti-terrorism law.

Two Indian nuns of the Missionaries of Charity congregation are among thousands of Indians, mostly students, stranded in Ukraine since the invasion by Russia.

"Whenever I have a meal, I remember displaced people and other needy people as I wonder how they can survive their daily lives and whether they have enough food, whether they have proper shelter." 

The Missionaries of Charity have closed a home for orphaned and abandoned children in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh following the expiration of its land lease. 

India's Supreme Court dismissed Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal's second appeal seeking to clear him of charges of raping a woman religious, clearing the way for trial in a district court.