Sr. Imelda Poole, IBVM, is president of Religious in Europe Networking Against Trafficking and Exploitation (RENATE), a group of religious congregations working against human trafficking in Europe. A native of Great Britain, Poole has worked in Albania for nine years, where she leads Mary Ward Loreto, a non-profit development organization serving vulnerable communities.
Franciscan Sr. Mary Lou Lafferty spent many years in education before realizing that her talents could also help inmates and their families. She assumed the rold of prison ministry coordinator for Catholic Charities in the Camden, N.J., diocese last September.
Can a devastating hurricane be a good thing? It is when it opens opportunity for improvement: Sr. Cathy Buster has administered, managed and developed housing projects for 57 years. Her Casa San Juan Bosco community in Arcadia, Fla., developed through Catholic Charities, is a model of state-of-the-art, energy-efficient housing for agricultural workers whose families used to live in trailer parks.
It is a time of great uncertainty and of great promise. We share a powerful moment! Even the phrase “Global Sisters” makes my heart skip a beat. “Global” evokes a sense of the expansive, the far-reaching, the diverse. And to be a “Sister” is something intimate, something characterized by love, care – and an organic bond. What a beautiful mystery that this time allows both to be true, in innovative ways, for religious life.
Tracy Kemme is a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati who authored the blog Diary of a Sister-in-Training during formation. After a decade in social justice and Hispanic ministry, she is working toward her master's degree in pastoral ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
GSR Today - A week that saw one journalist revisiting his old Catholic grade school in San Francisco and sisters planning protests at the World Cup soccer event in Brazil was overshadowed by the death of one of two women religious attacked outside of a church in Malaysia.
A message of solidarity, peace and hope to the people of South Sudan, from the Religious Superiors Association of South Sudan - The 75 representatives of 29 Catholic Religious Congregations belonging to the RSASS issue a statement against violence in the country and call for a new solidarity of peace, in the wake of thousands dead and a million people displaced.
Commentary - At the inaugural National Catholic Sisters Week in March 2014, sisters and college students participated in a discussion about stereotypes and the need for sisters to tell their own stories – the mainstream media is not going to do it. One participant observed: "Once it was the religious who were intolerant; now it’s the secular mainstream's turn. The roles have simply reversed."
Molly Pyle earned her Ph.D. in Russian history from the University of Chicago in 1997. She then spent 10 years managing projects aiding Russia’s transition to a market economy. In 2007, she became the managing editor of the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal founded in the wake of 9/11 to provide balanced analysis on national security and constitutional liberties. She began working independently as an editor, writer and oral historian in 2012, having secured the sponsorship of the Journal by Georgetown Law.
LCWR's work should not be impeded or diminished. It needs to be encouraged and celebrated. We find a painful disconnect between how they are being treated and the church of encounter that Pope Francis preaches. We are knocking, waiting for your response.