"Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together, and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time."

At the Catholic Theological Society of America convention, Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley received an award for her liberating action on behalf of women in the church.

Goodbyes are rarely easy. As a child, I had difficulty in leaving places and people I liked. As an adult, I know the familiar feeling of gratitude swelling in my heart and tears welling up behind my eyes when it comes time to part ways with those I love or to end an experience that has been enriching.

See for Yourself - I happened to stop in a Catholic religious goods store at the very time a going-out-of-business sale was underway. A statue caught my eye, with imagery that awed me.

"We can't let go of that string of hope."

Since founding the Dominican Wellspring Retreat Center in Trinidad and Tobago in 2012, Sinsinawa Dominican Sr. Gail Jagroop has become more of a "yes" person. Five years ago, after she entered the novitiate, Jagroop dedicated herself to retreat work in the town of St. Joseph, Trinidad.

Of course, we don't really like the word lie or, worse, liar. So we create new words like "alternative facts" so that we don't have to face the truth ... of the lie.

Through nearly 20 years of teamwork, congregations in St. Louis, Missouri, have come together have meet local education needs. They have developed a program that provides English tutoring to children from families of refugees and immigrants, and they founded a Catholic all-girls middle school.