From A Nun's Life podcasts - Sr. Margaret Nacke, CSJ, and Sr. Ann Oestreich, IHM, talk about human trafficking, the role of poverty in the traffficking of women and men worldwide, and efforts being made to end trafficking.

For more than a dozen years, Sr. Ephrem Nguyen Thi Luu has been working with hundreds of families who have lived on small boats on rivers for generations in Hue City, central Vietnam. She is so commonly known among them that they call her “Me Luu” (Grandma Luu) instead of Sr. Luu. Sr. Luu, who was born to a Buddhist family in nearby Da Nang City, joined the Saint Paul de Chartres Sisters in 1960 and has served the disadvantaged for 40 years. 

GSR Today - Last fall, Pope Francis famously declared unfettered capitalism to be tyrannical, and he decried our tendency to idolize money. In many companies, this obsession with wealth and profits manifests itself as tyranny against the workers. Christian consumers have a moral and theological imperative to care about who makes our clothing and how companies we support value people.

"Practicing forgiveness does not mean accepting wrong doing."

The Bethlehem Live Festival, organized by the Holy Land Trust on June 20, is a cheerful street festival originally intended to bring attention to the neglected street and raise awareness about its needs; it also focuses on faith, justice and culture. Workshops and panels such as nonviolence and nonlinear leadership were part of the festival schedule. An art gallery exhibited works by local artists, and an open-mic cafe allowed young local artists and performers to be seen and heard. Eight international bands were to perform on nights of the festival.

Last fall, Maryknoll Sr. Helene O'Sullivan launched a program in Phnomh Penh that provides basic education and intensive job training for formerly trafficked women and girls so they can get good-paying jobs in the hotel industry, not low-wage "pink-collar" jobs working in barbershops, factories or vegetable markets.

Sisters providing no-interest loans, a rare medieval convent (c. 1180 AD) uncovered in Wales, and a popular Spanish model who has decided to join the Order of St. Michael after an "earthquake" experience on a visit to Fatima, Portugal, are some of the stories circulating other news outlets this week.

Expanding the Internet - In June, Internet behemoth Google announced plans to invest $1 billion in satellites that would increase Internet access in the developing world. For many, this is a much needed development as terms like “information poverty” and “digital divide” have become part of the discussion about resource inequality in recent years – so much so that in 2011, the United Nations declared Internet Access a human right.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas. It was evening, and the growing darkness accentuated the eerie sight: fences upon fences, barbed wire and enormous flood lights.

God’s call often comes in strange ways, but a call for help from officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the faith communities in El Paso, Texas, on Wed., June 4, was more than startling. News of surging numbers of unaccompanied minors detained at the southern border, requiring the creation of warehouses on military bases to accommodate them, was followed by the disturbing stories out of Arizona. Now they were coming to El Paso.