By March 8, International Women's Day, more than 160 women had arrived on the wintry campus of St. Catherine University here for the first National Catholic Sisters Week.

First, a welcome! In this spot every week Global Sisters Report will look at stories that the secular, mainstream media – newspapers, magazines, TV, Internet blogs, etc. – are doing about Catholic sisters. We will cast a wide net, reporting on the good, the bad and the “ugh, what were they thinking?” stories out there.

Katie Hoormann stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded. She waved the bat around and got set.

The young man who was the pitcher let an underhanded toss soar. Katie swung and made contact, driving in a run for the Little Sisters of the Poor residents' team. Applause erupted in the open-space auditorium.

"She's 96 years old," exclaimed a gentleman sitting in a chair, with his walker at his side.

Pope Francis seems to be doing everything he can to remind Catholics that they are buried holding rosary beads, not checkbooks. The spring cleanup has begun in Rome.

There is a new Secretariat for the Economy to oversee how the Vatican handles money. There is a new Council for the Economy to analyze internal controls and governance. Francis even recently called for a meeting of religious orders' money managers.

Will any of this make any difference? And whose money is it anyhow?

Today’s letter, written on March 4, comes from Lasallian Br. Bill Firman, executive director of Solidarity with South Sudan. Furman writes from Juba, South Sudan’s largest city, where BBC Africa reports violence has broken out among the military in the last week.

Benedictine Sr. Mary John Mananzan wasted no time: as soon as she had listened to pleas of women claiming to have been abused through the so-called “sex for flight” scheme, she got on the phone to call the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Program (DOJ-WPP) right then and there. As acting director, Martin Menez’s job is to see that people admitted to witness protection receive help.

New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein got to interview Sr. Kathy Sherman before I did. Goodstein's article, published Dec. 1, 2012, highlighted St. Josephs Sr. Kathy Sherman's work, a combination of composing and performing, as an expression of prayer rooted in contemplation.

For many U.S. Catholics, participating in weekly parish faith sharing gatherings around Scriptural themes, foregoing those luscious squares of 72 percent dark chocolate, eating simple, meatless meals, donating the resulting grocery savings to Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl program to feed hungry people in 100 countries . . . . For ecologically minded parish coordinators searching for materials relevant to their midweekly Lenten and Advent gatherings, Sr. Terri MacKenzie’s ongoing creativity has proven to be a real gift.

On a couple of gray Saturdays at the end of February, you can always find me in a movie theater. It may sound crazy to spend 12 straight hours in a movie theater two Saturdays in a row, but I love to see what Hollywood deems to be the year’s best films all at the same time.

On a chilly day with drizzling rain, Conception Sr. Maria Nguyen Thi Hien stood at the gate of the healthcare clinic warmly shaking the hands of each patient who came in.

“We are delighted to welcome all of you. We will try our best to provide medical treatment and loving care for you and to relieve your physical pains,” Hien told them.