"Social justice very much has to include justice for the environment. Within that, there has to be a concern for women's rights. It's all part of it."

The National Directory of the Nigeria Conference of Women Religious is not a flashy book. Tan cover, very few pictures, 144 pages. The pages are filled with the names of the more than 6,000 sisters who make up 52 recognized congregations in Nigeria, which doesn't exactly make for gripping reading. It may not be an exciting book, but the directory is much more than a simple list: it's a tool of empowerment that is enabling women religious to regulate and improve the organization of sisters across Nigeria.

GSR Today - Jo Piazza’s new book, If Nuns Ruled the World, is getting a lot of attention. Piazza is a New York journalist and author of several books, and in her newest work she profiles 10 women religious who gloriously challenge stereotypical portrayals of women religious in pop culture, including Srs. Joan Dawber, Jeannine Gramick and Megan Rice.

The latest remarks from the Vatican official overseeing the attempts to reform women religious in the United States show how far apart the two sides are, prominent sisters say. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prefect Cardinal Gerhard Müller told L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, that the congregation’s five-year reform agenda for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is in place not because the Vatican hates women, but to help them regain their identity.

For the last four years I have thought about what it would be like to make vows. I watched as sisters I knew made their first professions and as others made their final professions. Each year brought a new chance to observe. I took in the music, the atmosphere, the decorations and the spirit of the place . . . and pictured myself in the midst of it all. Each profession liturgy was as unique as the woman making vows.Yet there was a thread of similarity that sewed all of the celebrations together. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Three stats and a map - Last week, religion blogger Tobin Grant created a graph showing where America’s various religions fall on the political spectrum, based on data from the Pew Forum. While the original graph grouped all Catholics in a monolithic category, on Tuesday, Grant released a second graph breaking American Catholic down into eight groups:

See for Yourself - As our country celebrates the 120th anniversary of Labor Day on September 1, and while I’m sincerely grateful for the blessing of working, right now I’m also thinking of a friend whose job isn’t such a blessing. The other day this out-of-state friend, Marie, phoned.

Here he goes again! Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has sounded off once more about the shortcomings of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Two years ago, when Cardinal Gerhard Müller criticized the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for promoting radical feminist themes, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered a stark reminder that feminism has no place in the Roman Catholic church. In his most recent interview in L'Osservatore Romano (the Vatican's "semi-official" newspaper), Müller further indicates that any suggestion of misogyny on the part of the hierarchy is a claim best answered with a punch line.

Our Lady of the Mission sisters provide education services during the summer to children of migrant workers who come to the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City and are generally behind grade level. Their work helps gain the students entry into the public school system later.