From A Nun's Life podcasts - Almost-Sister Jane joins Sister Maxine as they ponder what they'd ask an extraterrestrial about religion, and what popes and a Vatican astronomer have had to say about life on other planets.

LCWR 2017: At the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Holy Cross Sr. Sharlet Wagner was energized by an emerging narrative of oneness — "connections across congregations, connections across the global sisterhood, connections with laypeople."

Sr. Mariola Sequeira's curiosity about noises from a prison on the other side of a wall bordering her college led her to become a crusader for the rights of prisoners, poor people and minorities. As the Mission Sister of Ajmer moves on to a new job 1,300 miles away, she leaves a legacy of bold advocacy, especially on behalf of women.

Worried about the unresolved tensions between the United States and North Korea, Catholic sisters are adding their voices to those calling for diplomatic efforts to ease recent hostilities.

"My overachieving messiah complex will sometimes guilt me into believing it is my responsibility to save the world. It is not. That belongs to a God who is infinite and incomprehensible love."

Sr. Teresa Nguyen Thi Duc helps villagers abandon expensive and harmful burial customs, and brings them towards Catholicism. She spoke with GSR about her evangelization work with Ede ethnic villagers, whom she has served for 45 years.

We Sisters of Charity of Nazareth are called to provide relief to thousands in India's Darjeeling hills. Caught between violent protests and a government blockade, thousands have been cut off from food and medical supplies.

Maryknoll Sr. Janet Carroll, founding executive director of the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, was the recipient of the organization's 2017 Matteo Ricci Award, an honor bestowed upon people who best exemplify the bureau's mission to build a bridge of friendship and service between the Catholic Church in the United States and China.

The award, named for the 16th-century Jesuit missionary to China, was presented to Carroll at a banquet Aug. 12 during the China bureau's 27th biennial national conference at St. John's University.

"This glorious feast, celebrated today, August 15, is a testimony to the power of the laity and of our devotion to the mother of God."