Rhina Guidos

Contemplative sisters participate in the Synod of Bishops from afar through prayer.

Even as Catholic women take a historic step as voting members of the Synod of Bishops, former Irish President Mary McAleese slammed the Vatican Oct. 13 in a parallel gathering in Rome calling for more equality for women.

Two Catholic sisters taking part in Pope Francis' summit on the church's future told GSR the synod is different than expected. "I'm experiencing and witnessing the dismantling of the hierarchical," said Mercy Sr. Angela Perez.

Sr. Patricia Murray said that Pope Francis' process for the synod on synodality is helping "shift the feeling that the truth resides at the top of the hierarchy."

The increase in migration has shelters along the route at capacity, but places such as CAFEMIN in Mexico City, run by the Josephine sisters, are among the few stops where migrants are still welcomed, despite overcrowding.

Advocates for women's ordination in the Catholic Church hosted a prayer vigil at one of Rome's historic basilicas on Oct. 3, on the eve of Pope Francis' opening of a major Vatican summit expected to consider whether women might serve as Catholic deacons or priests.

Sr. Maria Cimperman described Pope Francis' reimagined process for the Oct. 4-29  Synod of Bishops as a "walking together," even if prelates still hold the majority of votes.  

At an event organized by the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious, sisters shared experiences of helping victims and other work against human trafficking, a "profound violence to the body of humanity."

Guatemalans tired of institutional political parties on Aug. 20 elected Bernardo Arévalo, a former diplomat who had little chance of winning two months ago, as their next president.

Jesuit communities worldwide are condemning the actions of the Nicaraguan government after police ordered a community of priests from the Company of Jesus to leave their private residence Aug. 19 in the capital of Managua.

The archbishop of El Salvador's capital city announced Aug. 6 that a canonization process has begun for a group of martyrs killed during the country's bloody civil war, including Jesuit Fr. Ignacio Ellacuría, the rector of the Catholic university who was murdered in 1989.

 El padre franciscano Brendan Forde, un misionero irlandés que vivió algunos de los conflictos más turbulentos de América Latina del siglo XX, incluso la dictadura militar en Chile y la guerra en El Salvador, murió el 8 de julio en Irlanda.

Franciscan Fr. Brendan Forde, an Irish missionary who lived through some of the most turbulent conflicts of 20th century Latin America, including a military dictatorship in Chile and the war in El Salvador, died July 8 in his native Ireland.

Catholics at the U.S.-Mexico border, including many sisters, are working to better assess how to help migrants and to talk about what they have learned and how to go forward post-Title 42. 

In a meeting of women and men religious from Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn proposed a "new beginning" that would include groups of consecrated life from all corners of the Americas.

St. Oscar Romero was killed in a hospital chapel in San Salvador. Sisters keep his memory alive on the hospital grounds in what they consider his "shrine": a small residence they built for him at the property's entrance.

The ending of Title 42 restrictions on immigrants' asylum claims were expected to lead to a surge of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. That surge did not materialize, yet Catholic organizations feel a sense of uncertainty.

Tensions were already high at the U.S.-Mexico border and they escalated May 7 after a car ran into a crowd outside a Brownsville, Texas, building that provides shelter to migrants, leaving eight dead and at least 10 injured.

Days before El Salvador marked the anniversary of a law suspending due process rights as part of a supposed gang crackdown, priests and a cardinal lambasted bishops for not speaking out more forcefully for those being held indefinitely.

In a candid account of his five decades in the Salvadoran church, the country's first cardinal tells of calumnies against El Salvador's St. Oscar Romero, but also of slights against him by other prelates.