"We have to welcome the stranger, we have to welcome the migrants and welcome the refugees who are fleeing from such harrowing conditions in their own lands and also to care for our victims of domestic violence and the modern-day slavery of human trafficking."
Few Catholic sisters have claimed the media spotlight recently quite like Sr. Jean Dolores Schmidt, the 98-year-old chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago men's basketball team. Global Sisters Report is talking to her after all of that about her role for the team and for all the students at Loyola.
Mother Mary McGreevy is serving her second term as chairperson of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. The major superior of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, McGreevy spoke with GSR about her life, her leadership style and the future of CMSWR.
Before she found herself uprooted, Sr. Cypriana Lyu and three other Charity Sisters of Jesus were just settling into their new mission in the village of Kerepi, South Sudan. They arrived in South Sudan in 2011, and after a few years of getting to know the community, they had just started building a secondary school for girls.
Sister for Christian Community Alison McCrary, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, laughs when she explains how she came to be a lawyer and a Catholic sister. "It's really just listening to the Spirit's invitation," she said. "None of it was ever planned."
Sr. Constance Fonju helps at a school in Massea, Cameroon, for children from the area's Pygmy tribes. She considers it her favorite ministry, and spoke to GSR about how the school came to be.
Sr. Miriam MacGillis's path took her from a content art teacher in the 1960s to co-founder in 1980 of Genesis Farm in Blairstown, New Jersey. MacGillis talks with GSR about living in harmony with the Earth and what has happened in the last four decades on the farm.
Sr. Lilian Curaming has been engaged in interfaith dialogue for nearly four decades. She spoke with GSR about her work, which includes starting an interfaith dialogue program to improve relations among Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples in Mindanao, Philippines.
Maryknoll Sr. Joanna Chan's renowned work in the theater began with writing plays for youth at New York's Transfiguration Church. "But theater is not only about the writing. Mounting a production involves bringing very diverse types of art and artists together. I have stayed in the profession for a number of reasons, and one of them is that idea of working together."
"Through the internet, movies and television, they see a very different reality, an image of Europe that is not real. They see that women have more freedom in Europe, and nobody believes there is also a lot of poverty."
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