Sisters' Stories

Late Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C., about 75 protesters gathered in front of the sign that marked the entrance to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops building, as part of a nationwide effort led by the Nun Justice Project. However, Kate Conmy, the organizer of the event in D.C., said the USCCB sign that was to be a landmark had been covered with a black tarp.

Conmy, who works for the Women's Ordination Conference, said most people learned about the vigil by visiting www.change.org, the website that hosts a petition started by the Nun Justice Project to support the sisters. She remembers one woman at the vigil saying: “I’m angry, and this is the first protest I’ve ever been to.”

The vigils will take place every Tuesday in May, and are expected to expand to more cities.

If you attended the vigil in Washington, D.C., or know someone who attended, please leave a comment.

Franciscan Sr. Florence Deacon, of St. Francis, Wis., talks with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about entering the St. Francis of Assisi convent at the age of 16, changes that came with Vatican II and the work sisters have been doing for the past few decades.

But Deacon, who will lead the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), would not comment on the Vatican document criticizing nuns until the organization has "drafted a formal response."

The Nun Justice Project, a group of Catholic justice organizations working to support the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), is planning a series of weekly candlelight prayer vigils across the country this month, with confirmed events so far starting at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.

The weekly vigils, most of which will take place in front of the local cathedral, will be held every Tuesday, leading up to the LCWR’s first meeting May 29.

Jim FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Nun Justice Project, said the objective for the vigils is twofold: to show the wide support for women religious in this country, and to inspire the Vatican to rescind its statement criticizing the U.S. nuns.

FitzGerald, who is executive director of Call To Action, one of the organizations working on The Nun Justice Project, said his own view of the church was shaped by a nun who was the campus minister at his college.

I'm still glowing with delight from the four-day experience at our Loretto Motherhouse last week. April 25 was the 200th anniversary of our first sisters entering/forming the community. One of the benefits of a blog is that length doesn't matter -- usually I write brief entries, but I figure if you should turn 200, you will want to know how to do it.

On Sunday, we honored our benefactors and dedicated and opened our new Heritage Center, a magnificent display of archival material in the old Loretto Junior College auditorium where as novices we square-danced, had choir practice and celebrated Christmas with a huge tree and presents from home set out on chairs in a huge circle.

The National Catholic Reporter has received a letter of support addressed to Catholic nuns, signed by 34 organizations representing Protestant women from New York to Austin, Texas. Cynthia Rigby, one supporter who helped gather signatures, said it was meant not as a petition, but as a theological letter.

“It was so important to us that this reflect a collective voice,” said Rigby, a theology professor at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, “because, theologically, we believe that communities of Christian believers, in this case communities of sisters in Christ, stand together.”

Rigby, who said the initiative was started by the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns, and the signatures collected in about five days, said she hopes Catholic sisters will see it and feel encouraged.

The letter reads: