by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt
Two Austrian Catholic nuns who spent more than 40 years working with people with Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy, on the South Korean island of Sorok have been awarded the prestigious Korean Manhae Award for Social Work and recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize.
by Jose Kavi
Contributing editor
Two top bodies of the Catholic church in India are now busy finalizing a policy to address sex abuse and other forms of abuse by clergy. "A draft policy is in the final stage now. It has been circulated among all bishops and major superiors in India," says Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.
There are rare moments when one experiences a fullness of time. A time and place where the previous years' hopes and desires emerge as an intensified whole deeper and more grounded than one could have hoped. That was my experience of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' (LCWR) Assembly this year.
Photo essay - Along the banks of the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, a small dairy farm is couched in the compound of the motherhouse of the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Thu Thiem. The convent dates back 176 years. For the last 26, Sr. Martha Nguyen Thi Quan has been the chief operator of the farm.
Joan O'Reilly is a Presentation Sister in the community's Northern Province of Ireland.
by GSR Staff
"Prayer isn't meant to change things; it is meant to change us."
GSR Today - As the world honors humanitarians today, August 19, the U.N.'s World Humanitarian Day, it's good to consider the debate that has been brewing for some time about whether the "aid world" has been a success or whether it is broken and needs to be fixed.
by Colleen Gibson
Columnist
Demographic collapse is tough ground to build a case for hope on. Yet, that's exactly where Marcia Allen, CSJ, began her presidential address, entitled "Transformation – An Experiment in Hope," to the Assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) last week. She didn't talk about diminishment or downsizing, as women religious are apt to do.
by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
See for Yourself - It's back to school season once again and I have some advice for adults who take their lunch to work. You could choose a plain brown sack but its ability to protect everything securely is iffy.
Dr. Laura M. Leming, F.M.I. (Marianist) is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Dayton and serves on the Board of Trustees of St. Mary's University. Her areas of expertise include the sociology of religion, global religions, and social psychology.
