GSR Today - I’ll give you three guesses for naming the No. 1 mainstream media story this week concerning women religious. Actually, you don’t even need three. The Vatican’s report on the apostolic visitation released Tuesday accounted for most of this week’s news about nuns and merited the same type of headlines from the mainstream media that it did from the non-secular press.
by Colleen Gibson
Columnist
That first Sunday night it appeared. In the stillness of the final day of November it had taken its place, where it was to remain for the coming four weeks of Advent. There in the chapel, a tiny manger had appeared. No wise men, no family, not even any animals. Simply, a manger.
Martha Ann Kirk, a Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word, is a professor of religious studies at the University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, and the author of Iraqi Women of Three Generations: Challenges, Education, and Hopes for Peace, based on her exhibit of photos and interviews.
by Sandra M. Schneiders
Contributor
Commentary - So much has already been said about the content of the report from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. I want to delve a bit below the surface of both the process and the text itself to engage what I think are some of the deeper issues and concerns and hopes that invite and challenge us for the future.
by Monica Clark
Contributor
Opponents and supporters of the pending sale of six Catholic hospitals in California to Prime Healthcare Services escalated their actions and their rhetoric this week as the February deadline nears for the state's attorney general to rule on the sale. The Daughters of Charity Health System (DCHS), which owns the six hospitals, says the sale to Prime is the only way to keep the hospitals open. Together, the four hospitals in northern California and two in southern California are running a monthly debt of $10 million, a cost DCHS says is not sustainable.
by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
See for Yourself - As Thanksgiving week approached, any number of faculty and staff at the university where I work asked me what I was going to be doing for the Thanksgiving holiday break. I replied, “I’ll be judging a beauty pageant.” The incredulous reactions were something like, “You? Judging a beauty pageant? What does a nun know about doing that?”
by N.J. Viehland
Troubled Filipino Worker in Japan? Call Sr. Marcy. If you are a Filipino migrant worker in Japan who has had troubles with immigration, chances are you have heard of Sr. Marcy Jacinto. She is the Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz nun from Zamboanga City, southern Philippines, whose name and mobile phone number are circulating in detention centers for undocumented migrants in Japan, or in homes of families of problematic Filipino workers.
by Christine Schenk
Well, I'll admit it, the Vatican's apostolic visitation report has been on my mind. For over two years, my community's leadership diverted precious time, energy and resources away from sorely needed ministry to the marginalized to address a searching Vatican inquiry that we had neither chosen nor had a part in shaping. Over these past stressful years, my feelings veered widely from anxiety, to sorrow, to anger, to pain. I was regularly sustained, however, by various sister leaders around the U.S. who, although also deeply affected, seemed imbued with an impressive calm.
by GSR Staff
"O King of All Nations and Cornerstone of the Church, rey de todas las naciones y piedra de la iglesia, come and deepen our love for all your people."
Three Stats and a Map - On Sunday, United Nations delegates wrapped up a two-week climate summit in Lima, Peru. The point of the summit was to draft an agreement that would commit participating countries to a plan to cut carbon emissions – a plan that would not put undue financial pressure on developing nations.
