Dan Stockman

In dozens of projects across the country, Catholic women religious are transitioning assets such as land and buildings into tools to meet other needs. 

Sisters say the event was an opportunity for younger sisters to see each other, to know they are not alone and that they are part of something that goes beyond congregations and borders. 

In 1965, Kinsella was finishing a stint in the U.S. Army, and was trying to visit an order of Carmelites to see about joining. But the cab driver — unbeknownst to her — dropped her off with Visitation Sisters instead.

Mercy Srs. JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy, along with Mercy Associate Carol Conway and dozens of volunteers and donors, have been hard at work delivering peace and mercy to asylum seekers in Chicago.

Sr. Patricia Murray said the Holy Spirit guided the journey through deep listening to one another, which connected participants as individuals and also as a global church.

For the Erie Sisters of St. Joseph, their annual Thanksgiving meal is one of their biggest undertakings of the year. Last year, their army of volunteers delivered 1,200 turkey dinners with all the trimmings.

Because consecrated men and women have already largely embraced synodality, their prophetic voices can teach the universal church to follow the path the Holy Spirit is leading us, Cardinal Robert McElroy said. 

"I won't use the term success, but it has been fruitful. It's a new state in the experience of synodality," says one sister who was a voting member at the first session of the Vatican's multiyear synod.

A consortium of four sites is working to collect and preserve religious archives and eventually be linked together to provide access to the holdings of all four facilities. At risk is the history of Catholic sisters.

Panelists at the National Catholic Conference on Restorative Justice say that great strides have been made in some areas by the church to ensure widespread abuse and cover-up do not happen again, but failures continue to arise.

In recent decades congregations began moving investments into companies and funds that make a positive impact on the world. Now, some are even using their money to change the investing landscape itself.

Discussion and questions during workshops at the annual Leadership Conference of Women Religious assembly pointed to the stark reality of a dearth of members able to serve as congregational leaders: Even congregations able to currently install leadership teams have to prepare for a future in which they may not be able to do so. 

At the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' annual assembly, president Rebecca Ann Gemma, a Dominican Sister of Springfield, Illinois, gave the presidential address, telling the sisters they should never lose hope, even with the changes taking place in religious life. 

At the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' annual assembly, attendees will examine how, from the vastness of the universe to the space within us, God creates life, even out of what appears to be destruction and death.

Sharing her dad's passion for the Jesus of the Scriptures, Sr. Maureen Geary was led to the Grand Rapids Dominicans in 1987. On Friday, she'll begin her year as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

It will take generations to find healing from the boarding school system, but the process must start with restoration, said Samuel Torres of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. 

The Catholic Truth & Healing website lists 87 Catholic-run Native boarding schools before 1978 across 22 states. Seventy-three of those schools were run or staffed by Catholic women religious.

Bishop Mark Seitz and others call out Trump's Catholic chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, asking him to shield the immigration policy protecting young people brought to the U.S. as children.