Chris Herlinger

Some 1 million pilgrims a year flock to Medjugorje, a Marian shrine located in a village 16 miles southwest from the city of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The Oscar-winning film "The Zone of Interest," in its focus on Rudolf and Hedwig Höss, asks a disturbing and damning question: What was it like to live at Auschwitz if you were part of the camp's machinery of death?

"With God's help, we survive," says one Ukrainian villager. That source of hope is made tangible by the presence of St. Basil sisters, who continue to visit Preobrazhenka and other villages at least once a month.

Though the efforts of sisters in Bosnia are small in scale, and often involve those the sisters have befriended, they are helping mend wounds in a country where war fueled ethnic and religious animosity.

With "Hope Amid Turmoil," the most ambitious and challenging project we have undertaken at GSR, we've been inspired by the incredible courage and deep faith of sisters serving in conflict areas throughout the world.

A major exhibition on William Blake's work, titled "William Blake: Visionary," is now on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles through Jan. 14, 2024.

Sisters living in Croatia and neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina describe fallout from the wars of 30 years ago and about their current ministries that are helping to heal the wounds of lands once riven by conflict. 

The opera depicts the spiritual journey of Sister of St. Joseph Helen Prejean as she navigates the pain and redemption of death row ministry. 

A sister who lives in the West Bank told GSR that she and other sisters are keenly aware of the suffering that has befallen both Israelis and Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas attacks. 

With a busy week of marches, workshops and a U.N. summit behind them, sisters and other Catholics say they must continue and expand their work to increase public pressure for change on climate action. 

Afghan and Ukrainian refugees find a home with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York, bringing "new life to these old walls."

Church-based ministries and humanitarian programs in Haiti continue their work despite the considerable and daunting challenges.

The security and social situation in Haiti is as grave as it has ever been, say sisters, priests and humanitarian workers, who paint a grim picture of a country struggling amid gang domination that observers compare to terrorism.

Book review: Nina Siegal's The Diary Keepers presents readers with translated excerpts from journals penned principally by seven Dutch diarists, tracking their lives as the five-year German occupation unfolded. 

Sr. Lydia Timkova has committed to regular trips across Ukraine to shepherd food and medical supplies to civilians living near the Russian front. Twice in 2023, Timkova has journeyed to where battles are raging.

While visiting the memorial museum at Theresienstadt, I stood in front of a wall bearing names of child victims who were deported from the ghetto to death camps. There, I saw the name Jiří Herlinger. He was 8 years old.

Water is connected to hope, peace and unity, say attendees of the 2023 U.N. conference, which brought together governments, businesses, scientists, environmentalists and civil society groups like sister congregations.

Book review: How much do we need to know about the lives of writers to appreciate their work? Is the life all — or is it nothing? These questions hover over Eliot After The Waste Land, a new biography of poet T.S. Eliot.

Four refugee women from different parts of Ukraine thrown together by the sad fate of war say they are ending a turbulent year safe, secure and calm — though still uneasily in exile. They spoke to NCR in Warsaw.

Two Catholic scholars who study nuclear arms, peace and disarmament issues say U.S.-Russia tensions over the war in Ukraine should not deter either country from "lowering temperatures" over the use of nuclear arms.