Providence Sr. Susanne Gallagher
Profession: Staff member at Special Religious Development (SPRED)
Lives in: Chicago

With fears that the situation in South Sudan is disappearing from the front pages of newspapers, the United Nations released a press statement yesterday appearing on U.N. News Centre about the desperate need for relief in the most remote areas of the country still affected by violence. 

Aljazeera published a story this week, “Frontline Nuns,” profiling religious aid workers from Solidarity with South Sudan who are serving in areas of war while facing realities of their own safety. Br. Bill Firman, Solidarity’s executive director, also wrote to NCR this week with a letter titled, “Troubled Times.”

If we’ve said it once we’ve said it a thousand times: It’s not nice to tow a sister’s truck while she’s delivering meals to the homeless. That story and others in the mainstream media caught our eye this week.

Sister of Charity of New York Immaculata Burke has been a near legend in the Diocese of Spokane, especially for those who follow the work of the diocese's mission in Guatemala. She died March 8 at the age of 94 in Guatemala. The following is reprinted with permission from the March 20 issue of the Inland Register, the Spokane Diocese's newspaper:

Sister Immaculata moves on from Guatemala Mission to her Eternal Reward

by Jerry Monks, for the Inland Register

(From the March 20, 2014 edition of the Inland Register)

This week in the mainstream media: a sister doles out massages at the ballpark, one shares the secret of a long and happy life, and Russell Crowe goes all paparazzi on a couple of women religious in Rome.

The image that surfaces when Sr. Teresa Forcades speaks is evocative of spiraling energy, bubbling in spirit, and of being on the ground with the needs of the people of God.

Something new to address aging is taking shape in northern California. Looking toward an innovative model of healthy age-in-place and community hospitality, the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose broke ground this week in Fremont, Calif., on a new residence for themselves. This opens the way for their existing Siena building to be re-purposed as a dementia-specific community health and wellness center for the people of Fremont.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, a Vietnamese sister who is a psychologist urged women to have self-confidence in their abilities and values. She encouraged them to enhance their confidence to gain more respect from society.

"I lost my job, lost my house, and lost my children to children's services. I was homeless and a former drug addict, but I'm clean and sober for five years now, and I have my own apartment."