Dan Stockman

US congregations of women religious released statements following President-elect Donald Trump's victory, calling for hope and sharing their determination to serve the vulnerable.

"We want to be on public record as having called out this fraud so that if the outcome of next month's election is contested in Pennsylvania our integrity will not be called into question," the community said.

For 20 years, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia have welcomed their neighbors, whether they are immigrants or people experiencing drug addiction and homelessness.

At her Sept. 3 funeral, Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane's friends, family and loved ones reflect on her life of advocacy to reform the church.

Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane, who fought for decades for the equality of women in the Catholic Church — famously publicly challenging the pope on the issue in 1979 — died Aug. 22. She was 87.

After experiencing consolidation of Sisters of St. Joseph communities, Brazda understands what congregations are going through as they spin off ministries, sell buildings and campuses, and even look to completion.

The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament sold their convent in Philadelphia and moved into a retirement community, a Lutheran facility where most of the other residents are Jewish and much of the staff is Muslim.

Dawn's Place is a yearlong program, but that is just the very start of the journey survivors are on, says Sr. Meaghan Patterson, executive director.

Among myriad services, the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center offers a monthly food pantry to hundreds of residents in Camden, New Jersey.

A shareholder's resolution led by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace calls for Citigroup to examine its efforts to respect the human rights of Indigenous people in the projects it finances and invests in. 

The apostolic visitation and doctrinal assessment were controversial, but 10 years after those tense times, sisters say their relationship with officials in Rome is radically different. 

The filing includes an affidavit from Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach warning that once the association of contemplative orders the Vatican appointed to govern the sisters is in control, it can do anything it wishes, including taking the monastery.

"We are Christians, which means we don't have a choice. … That's how we're supposed to be recognized — by the way we love each other, by the way we love our neighbors."

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.