Social Justice

The Africa Faith and Justice Network, founded by three Catholic religious orders to lobby in D.C., is celebrating 40 years. The organization now also seeks to empower advocacy efforts across the African continent.

Maasai tribespeople and their supporters, including sisters, face intimidation as the Tanzanian government, in the name of conservation and tourism, has tried to force the Maasai from their northern ancestral land.

"We cannot be silent when the country is burning with divisive forces everywhere," Sr. Maria Nirmalini, head of the Conference of Religious India, said in a letter to more than 130,000 nuns, priests and brothers.

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.

More than 31% of Citigroup shareholders supported a resolution brought by Catholic congregations that called for a review of the bank's financing policies around climate change and Indigenous rights. The vote took place April 25.

The case of Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik shows the immense structural and cultural change needed to deal with abuse in the church. Even more profound change is needed when it comes to abuse of women, both lay and religious.

Joan Chittister: The sense of "community" in the U.S. is broken in two. How can a nation, an institution, a people, a family function well without the sense of community that carries us through dark and dangerous times?

Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell, the former executive director of the Catholic social justice lobby Network, will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden at the White House July 7.