Birth control access - June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that certain companies are not legally obligated to cover certain birth control types for employees if doing so violates the company’s religious beliefs. While American Christians generally support  a company’s right to be exemption from contraception coverage on religious grounds (55 percent of Catholics and 51 percent of Protestants agree), the topic has been widely debated, usually in terms of religious rights vs. women’s rights.

Sr. Cova Orejas, a Carmelite Sister of Charity, Vedruna, spent three years Lainé refugee camp in southeastern Guinea, where knowing refugee women, her teachers, was a gift from God.

With reports that the Zimbabwean government is failing to build new schools – as thousands of pupils are out of school because parents cannot afford tuition fees – Precious Blood Sr. Ludo Ncube, CPS, can be found deep in a rural outpost in Esigodini, Mzingwane district (29 miles outside Zimbabwe’s second largest city), working against what looks like insurmountable odds to provide education to impoverished villagers.

“The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.”

GSR Today - Despite severe genocide under the Pol Pot regime and the resulting political and economic fallout over the past few decades, there is an almost tangible optimism in Cambodia, which is why I love the report from Claire Schaeffer-Duffy we published last week about a Maryknoll sister ministering to sex-trafficking victims in Cambodia.

Analysis - When the Supreme Court on Monday issued a split decision narrowly backing the right of for-profit corporations to deny contraception coverage to their employees for religious reasons, many assumed that faith-based nonprofits would have it easy when their own cases eventually reach the high court.

Sr. Anne Flanagan, a Daughter of St. Paul from New Orleans, currently lives in Berkshire, England, where she is serving as editor of an upcoming web project for the U.K. Pauline sisters. In addition to providing media training for sisters and parishes, she posts regularly to her blog, aptly titled Nun Blog, and moderates a Theology of the Body Google+ community of almost 500 people.