Rhina Guidos

Rhina Guidos is the Latin America regional correspondent for Global Sisters Report. She previously was a reporter and editor for Catholic News Service in Washington, D.C., and has worked at several U.S. newspapers. Guidos is the author of Rutilio Grande: A Table for All, about a Jesuit priest martyred in her native El Salvador. Follow her on Twitter at @rhina_guidos.

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Rhina Guidos es la corresponsal regional para América Latina de Global Sisters Report. Anteriormente fue reportera y editora de Catholic News Service en Washington, D.C., y ha trabajado en varios periódicos estadounidenses. Guidos es autora de Rutilio Grande: A Table for All [Rutilio Grande: Una mesa para todos], sobre un sacerdote jesuita martirizado en su El Salvador natal. Sígala en Twitter en @rhina_guidos.

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Residents are illuminated by the headlights of a car during a blackout after a major power plant failed Oct. 18 in Havana, Cuba. (AP photo/Ramon Espinosa, file)

Amid shortages and blackouts, sisters accompany people of Cuba

Despite years of shortages in Cuba, and now more constant blackouts, Catholic sisters and priests are committed to remain with those suffering on the island.

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, speaks during a Nov. 13 session of the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Seitz, the bishops' migration chair, said the U.S. church will try to reshape the national narrative on migration to one that is more welcoming. (OSV News/Bob Roller)

Bishops express caution over policy, alarm over 'rhetoric' toward migrants

After a Nov. 13 USCCB report on immigration from El Paso’s Bishop Mark Seitz, some prelates said Donald Trump's presidential campaign caused damage because of its "incredible negative rhetoric" against immigrants.

The border wall is seen in the background as migrants from South and Central America look to surrender to immigration officials after crossing into the United States from Mexico in Ruby, Ariz., June 24. (OSV News/Reuters/Adrees Latif)

Sister on border: Silence from pulpit over immigration 'unbearable'

As they prepare for a second Trump presidency, immigration activists at the border, including a sister lawyer, worry for the future. 

Nurses rally outside the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Nov. 12 in Baltimore, asking bishops to urge the Catholic hospital chain Ascension for better staffing and patient care. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Nurses lead largest protest during bishops' fall meeting in Baltimore

Nurses rallied outside the fall meeting of the U.S. bishops' conference Nov. 12 in Baltimore, urging bishops to do something about workers' pay and the level of care patients receive at Catholic hospital chain Ascension.

Sr. María Suyapa Cacho Álvarez, left, and Fr. Francisco Hernández speak on a panel about Afro-descendants and the synod on synodality Oct. 8 at the Centro Internazionale San’t Alberto in Rome. The event, sponsored by Amerindia, brought together prominent speakers like Cacho, a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, to tackle topics of justice and peace with a “Latin American-Caribbean” expression. (GSR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Sister at synod says church has to face 'indifference' toward racism

"What do you do in the face of all these viruses, worse than COVID-19, that suffocate and threaten the human condition and that of the Afro-descendant people and other people?" asked Sr. María Suyapa Cacho Álvarez.

Allison Beyer of South Bend, Indiana, leads a group of pilgrims as they sing a psalm Oct. 6, 2024, at Rome's Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Members of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (known as CEAMA) and Discerning Deacons took part in a weeklong pilgrimage to share women's service to the church, to learn about deacons, and to call on the church to approve the diaconate for women as the last part of the Synod on Synodality began the first week of October at the Vatican. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Women say they want church to talk to them, not about them, on diaconate

A group of pilgrims with the Ecclesial Conference on the Amazon and Discerning Deacons took part in programs and church visits in Rome at the start of the synod discussing the spiritual call many women have to be deacons in the church.

Rosa Bonilla stands near a banner representing St. Phoebe with St. Paul the Apostle at San Lorenzo chapel at the Centro Internazionale Giovanile in Rome Oct. 3.

Undeterred by Vatican official's comments, women aspire to diaconate

A group of men and women gathered at a chapel near the Vatican, confidently praying that the church would restore the female diaconate Oct. 3, the day after synod participants were told it would not happen now.

Rev. Angela Nevitt Meyer, of Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA, poses near St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 2. She and others had prayed that the Catholic Church will open the priesthood to all who feel called to the ministry, particularly women. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Priesthood about a person's gifts, 'not their genitalia,' says woman priest

Rev. Angela Nevitt Meyer of Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA joined other advocates for women's ordination in Rome, where they prayed near the site of synod on synodality.

Members of the Missionaries of Charity wait at an immigration office in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, July 6, 2022, after Nicaragua's government shut down their organization along with other charities and civil organizations. The government on Aug. 19 stripped the legal status of 22 women's religious communities, (OSV News/Sunil Kumar, handout via Reuters)

Women's congregations hit hard in latest crackdown in Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan government stripped the legal status of 26 Catholic congregations, the majority of them communities of women religious, whose ministries provided food and services for the elderly and poor.

Auxiliary Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera of Cuzco, Peru, stops by the altar of St. Rose of Lima at St. Patrick's Cathedral, July 8 in New York City. Estrada, general secretary of the Latin American Bishops' Council, said you can't kneel with reverence before the Eucharist while also rejecting the poor, including migrants, working toward measures that lead to their death or lack of dignity. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

CELAM bishop calls migrants 'suffering Christs'

Auxiliary Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera of Cuzco, Peru, spoke with National Catholic Reporter July 8-9 as he prepared to meet with United Nations officials in New York about the dire situation facing much of Latin America.

From left: Dorothy Gray, Joan Tillery and Gail Louis listen during a June 19 ceremony outside Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., unveiling a plaque acknowledging "sins of racism" that took place there in the late 1800s and early 1900s that led Black parishioners to leave and establish a new parish nearby. Descendants of parishioners who left were present for a Mass and a ceremony and later spent time with modern-day Holy Trinity parishioners. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

On Juneteenth, a noted DC Catholic church asks forgiveness for its racist past

"This truth is ugly and painful," said Linda Gray, whose ancestors were among those who became part of Epiphany Parish, which Black Catholics founded after they left Holy Trinity in the 1920s because of the racism there. 

Three human rights lawyers from El Salvador, along with a member of Center for Exchange and Solidarity in El Salvador, left, addressed wrongful detentions in their country during a community event June 5 at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington. They talked about how the government’s “state of exception” of the last two years, has resulted in wrongful incarcerations and sometimes death for those detained. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Salvadoran lawyers say they've been 'abandoned' in defense of human rights

In a June 4-7 visit to the nation's capital that also included a stop in New York, the lawyers shared stories of innocent individuals, communities as well as U.S. citizens who were visiting El Salvador and were detained under the government's "state of exception." 

Santos Alfaro Ayala hugs his mother during Mass April 13, 2024 in Guarjila, El Salvador. Alfaro, a Catholic husband and father of two, offered his testimony of being unjustly detained for almost three months.

In El Salvador, a Mass of thanksgiving for wrongfully jailed father

Santos Alfaro Ayala was wrongfully imprisoned for almost three months under El Salvador's "state of exception," which has suspended due process rights for the government's fight against armed gangs. Alfaro and his community are rejoicing at his release.

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, left, talks with Peter K. Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America, during a daylong conference on immigration the university hosted with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops April 11 in Washington.

Both Republicans and Democrats spread anti-immigrant views, says Bishop Seitz

The bishop leading the U.S. Catholic Church's response on migration issues said that both major political parties are participating in anti-immigrant sentiment in the country. 

Miguel Flores, one of the 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners sent on a plane to Washington last year, poses for a photo near the Washington Monument on Feb. 22. He said he is determined to keep fighting for democracy and "can't look the other way" when it comes to the abuses in Nicaragua. (NCR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Nicaraguan, exiled from his home country, finds community at DC parish

Miguel Flores was among 222 Nicaraguans forcibly removed from the country in 2023 and brought to the U.S. A year later, with support from parishioners at Washington's Holy Trinity Catholic Church, he is talking more about the experience.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, second from right, his wife Gabriela Rodriguez, right, running mate and Vice President Félix Ulloa, second from left, and his wife Lilian Alvarenga wave to supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace after general elections polls closed Feb. 4 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (AP photo/Moises Castillo)

El Salvador's Bukele wins second term, as Catholic religious express fear for democracy

El Salvador's president, who has waged a war against criminal gangs that has imprisoned more than 70,000 people, has won a second term. Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez spoke of St. Oscar Romero interceding for the country.

Sr. Lisa Buscher, of the Society of the Sacred Heart, shares candy with children at a migrant shelter in Mexicali, Mexico on May 9.

In heated political season, sisters urge empathy on immigration

Following record-breaking crossings of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, sisters and church leaders call for Christian empathy for those fleeing their homes all over the world. 

A man pulls a cart of recycled material past a mural that says "From the heart comes peace" in Bogotá, Colombia, Nov. 22. Though 2016 peace accords put an end to the decadeslong conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government, Colombia's poorest, many in rural communities, still suffer violence, said Dominican Sr. Diana Herrera Castañeda. (GSR photo/Rhina Guidos)

In Colombia's conflict, women religious provide 'opportunities for life'

With their ministries and presence in towns that continue to suffer from Colombia's 50-year-long conflict, nuns contribute to the peace process through accompaniment.

Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, delivers his homily as he celebrates a special Mass in honor of the Black Christ of Esquipulas, Guatemala, Jan. 5, 2020, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. (CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Support for Guatemala's Cardinal Ramazzini flows in wake of arrest rumors

Latin American Catholic leaders and groups are lining up to support a Guatemalan cardinal rumored to be a target for arrest after voicing fears that a coup may prevent Guatemala's president-elect from being sworn in. 

Participants of the IV Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Religious Life gathered in small groups Nov. 24 on the campus of La Salle University in Bogotá, Colombia, to talk about their experiences in consecrated life. While they gathered and dialogued much in the style practiced at October’s synod on synodality at the Vatican, some said it is a style religious communities have long used. (GSR photo/Rhina Guidos)

In Bogotá, Latin America religious urge renewal of church structures

In welcoming attendees of CLAR's IV Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Religious Life, CLAR president Sr. Liliana Franco Echeverri said that "our structures are in need of renewal," because "there are structures that suffocate and ways of proceeding that deny what is human."

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