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Vinnie Rotondaro
The 2015 Nuns on the Bus tour concluded here Tuesday with a rally on the National Mall hours ahead of Pope Francis' arrival in the United States. On their 13-day tour, the sisters hosted 33 events in in eight states to "connect with real people — and to hear about the injustices they encounter daily," according to the Nuns on the Bus website. The theme of the fourth annual trip: "Bridge the Divides, Transform Politics." "If we can't face and bridge the divides here, where else can we expect it to be done?" asked Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell, leader of the bus tour and executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby.
The recent court ruling against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a congregation of Roman Catholic women religious, marked the latest, but likely not the last, dustup in the debate over the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate.
The stats and facts of modern-day human trafficking are shocking. Human trafficking facilitates sexual exploitation, forced labor, domestic servitude; it leads to organ removal and forced marriage. It represents, says Comboni Missionary Sr. Gabriella Bottani, a new form of slavery. Bottani was appointed in January as the new coordinator of Talitha Kum, a Rome-based international network of religious sisters working to end human trafficking.
