Immaculate Heart College s 1964 Mary s Day celebration (Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles)
As the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary decided to take up the council s call for renewal. Over the next few years, the sisters carefully and purposefully crafted a list of changes they wanted to take.
They had no idea that path would force them to choose between bowing to church hierarchy or leaving religious life.
But that was the decision they faced in December 1969, when the 560 sisters voted on whether to submit to the demands of Los Angeles Cardinal James McIntyre that they stop their transformation. Disobeying the cardinal, the Vatican said, would mean asking for dispensation from their vows and returning to the laity.
KENYA
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MissionNewswire) Hundreds of women entrepreneurs in Dagoreti, Kenya, and other poor areas are benefiting from the Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) project started by the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco three years ago, according to an article in the
Global Sisters Report. The Salesian Sisters developed the microloan project after securing funds from Don Bosco Mondo in Germany.
The project was launched to help women start businesses of their own to alleviate poverty and improve the well-being of their children. Many of the women use the funds earned for their children’s school fees and other necessities.
Sister Gisele Mashauri explained that the groups consist of 15 to 25 members each. Members save at least 50 Kenyan shillings (50 cents) per day from their businesses and then lend this money to other members in the form of loans without collateral.
Dhaka, Bangladesh The coronavirus pandemic has meant worsening trouble for nuns and their students across Bangladesh. It is difficult to collect tuition fees from the students. Many of the parents and guardians lost jobs and businesses, and the families are going through financial crisis, Holy Cross Sr. Shikha Laetitia Gomes told Global Sisters Report. Gomes is the principal of Holy Cross College in Dhaka, one of the top colleges in the country for female students. We got tuition fees from 70% of the students. The rest of the students couldn t give it to us.
Although Christians make up less than 1% of the population of this Muslim-majority country, the Catholic Church runs approximately 1,000 schools, 17 colleges and one university. Of those, nuns run around 100 schools, including some colleges. Approximately 80% of the students at these institutions are not Christian.
Mercy Sr. Janet Rozzano discovered she was a lesbian gradually.
During the 1960s and 70s, she became emotionally close with several women, describing her feelings in journal entries filled with both fear and joy, as she wrote in an essay published in
When she gathered the courage to come out, other women in her community supported her, Rozzano told Global Sisters Report. Soon, she became an advocate for other LGBTQ Catholics. I came to see my telling people coming out to them as a ministry in itself, Rozzano said.
Her impact reached fellow Sisters of Mercy, including Sr. Mary Kay Dobrovolny, who describes herself in the book as unapologetically and enthusiastically queer.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Cleveland s former motherhouse is currently being used as a high school. (Courtesy of the Congregation of St. Joseph)
When seven congregations of Sisters of St. Joseph completed their consolidation into one new community in 2007, the sisters thought the work of the merger was largely finished. After all, it had taken nearly a decade to get to that point. I remember when we did this, thinking, We re done! We did it! But we were not done, said Sr. Kathleen Brazda, part of the current leadership team for the Congregation of St. Joseph. We re still evolving, still looking at structures.