In 2010, I moved to Philadelphia to serve as a full-time volunteer, leaving a full-time job behind to serve as a parish outreach minister in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. The tree in front of our volunteer house was a point of reference. It was a marker, rising above the row homes and trash-strewn streets of the neighborhood. As it came into focus, it guided others to us, while also serving as a sign of what had been and a signal of what could be.

Review - Women's ministerial vocations have differed throughout the centuries, but they have existed in every era and in every locale. Benedictine Sr. Laura Swan, former prioress of St. Placid Priory in the state of Washington, adds to her prodigious body of work with this comprehensive investigation into the lives of thousands of celibate women who lived outside the cloister as Beguines.

"Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it."

LCWR president-elect Sr. Marcia Allen talks to Global Sisters Report about growing up in western Kansas, living through the overnight changes wrought by Vatican II for women religious, and her thoughts on the evolution of leadership. With degrees in French, history and administration, Allen also earned a doctorate in applied spiritual ministry. “What I really wanted to do was get an organized perspective of the development of spirituality,” she said, “because, as a matter of fact, the people of the world are yearning for spiritual depth rather than religious traditions.”

Global Sisters Report traveled to Concordia, Kansas, last month to visit with Sr. Marcia Allen, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph based there. Allen is president-elect of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; she officially will be installed at the LCWR assembly in August.

See for Yourself - Language doesn't possess a word horrible enough to express it. Dastardly? No. Horrendous? No. Unadulterated evil? No. None of these is enough as we describe the awful truth and stark reality. On Jan. 27, 2015, the world marked the 70th anniversary of the Russian liberation of Auschwitz.

Rebirth of Catholic hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti - It has been just over five years since the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti destroyed the hospital in Haiti's capital. The Catholic Health Association helped fund the building of a new St. Francis de Sales Hospital, which was dedicated Jan. 15. Daughter of Charity Sr. Carol Keehan, CEO of Catholic Health Association, talks about the partnerships that made this piece of recovery possible.

GSR Today - Following the posting of my last GSR Today blog Getting on the learning curve about human trafficking awareness, one of our readers tipped me off to a story from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It’s about a couple of Sisters of Mercy and truckers.

Three Stats and a Map - In case you missed it, earlier this week, a blizzard buried parts of the United States in deep, deep snow. Areas of Connecticut and Massachusetts saw as much as 30 inches, and New York City was preemptively shut down to keep people safe. But of course, as is almost always the case these days, the snow storm brought out the climate change skeptics.

"“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness."