nuns in the garden

 * “Nun” in German

This page is dedicated to contemporary nuns who courageously speak “truth to power”
as well as to those sisters who quietly spread compassion, wisdom, joy and harmony.

 

cleaningWorking on this page.
Please come back soon!

 

Joan Chittister, OSB is a Benedictine Sister of Erie, PA. She is the author of over 50 books – and over 700 arti­cles in numerous jour­nals and maga­zines including: America, US Catholic, Sojourners, Spirituality (Dublin) and The Tablet (London). She is a regular contrib­utor to NCRonline​.org and HuffingtonPost​.com Her next book, Between the Dark and the Daylight, will be published by Random House in the spring of 2015. Her book, The Monastery of the Heart: an invi­ta­tion to a mean­ingful life, is prelude to a move­ment for all seekers: Monasteries of the Heart, recently begun by her Benedictine commu­nity. She serves as Executive Director of Benetvision, a research and resource center for contem­po­rary spir­i­tu­ality. She also is co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a UN-spon­sored orga­ni­za­tion creating a world­wide network of women peacemakers.

Sr Joan on HildegardRead her descrip­tion of Hildegard here...


Sr. Joan is a dozen years older than I am — what an inspiration!
me3I always look forward to finding her newsletter in my mailbox. ‑pb


Sister Margaret Farley, RSM,
is a member of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy, an ethi­cist and retired professor. She taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School from 1971 to 2007. The first woman appointed to serve full-time on the Yale School board, she is a past pres­i­dent of Catholic Theological Society of America.

Farley’s contro­ver­sial book, Just Love (2006), brought crit­i­cism and censure from the Holy See, specif­i­cally the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for moral views which oppose the teach­ings of the Roman Catholic Church, but her book and views has received both support and endorse­ment from the groups Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Catholic Theological Society of America. (wikipedia)

Nuns on The Bus — 2016

In a spir­ited retort to the Vatican, a group of Roman Catholic nuns embarked on a bus trip across nine states in June, 2012, stop­ping at home­less shel­ters, food pantries, schools and health care facil­i­ties run by nuns to high­light their work with the nation’s poor and disenfranchised.

The bus tour was a response to a blis­tering critique of American nuns released in April of that year by the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which included the accu­sa­tion that the nuns are outspoken on issues of social justice, but silent on other issues the church considers crucial: abor­tion and gay marriage.

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Sister Simone Campbell

Sister Simone, a lawyer who ran a legal clinic for the poor in Oakland, Calif., for 18 years, is not completely on board with the bishops’ reli­gious liberty campaign. She said that financing for Catholic social services had increased signif­i­cantly in the three years since President Obama took office: “We’re cele­brating the reli­gious freedom we have.”

Update 2016: A lot has happened since that tour! Including s new pope! Visit their web site to follow them on their journey for justice. 

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR ) is the asso­ci­a­tion of the leaders of congre­ga­tions of Catholic women reli­gious in the United States . The confer­ence has more than 1500 members, who repre­sent more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women reli­gious in the United States. Founded in 1956, the confer­ence assists its members to collab­o­ra­tively carry out their service of lead­er­ship to further the mission of the Gospel in today’s world.

LCWR pres­i­dent Theresa Kane, RSM addresses Pope John Paul II at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC on October 7, 1979.

The scope of the confer­ence’s concerns is broad and includes collab­o­rating in Catholic church and soci­etal efforts that influ­ence systemic change.

Sister Maureen Fiedler, S.L.,  is a radio host and a member of the Sisters of Loretto. She is a progres­sive, contro­ver­sial activist within the Roman Catholic Church. She has a long history working with inter­faith coali­tions on a variety of issues including: social justice, peace, the envi­ron­ment, gender equality, human rights and female ordi­na­tion in the Catholic Church. She holds a doctorate in Government from Georgetown University.

In 1984 she was one of 97 theolo­gians and reli­gious persons who signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion, calling for reli­gious pluralism and discus­sion within the Church regarding its posi­tion on abor­tion. The Vatican later reported that she had disavowed the state­ment, but she responded, “I have never retracted or recanted one syllable... I continue to stand behind every word of it without the slightest reservation.”

She has hosted the news­magazine and talk radio program Interfaith Voices since it debuted in 2002. The program’s mission is the promo­tion of inter­faith under­standing and reli­gious dialog in the public square.

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The Loretto Community

From Faithful America:

The fracking industry messed with the wrong nuns. After poisoning drinking water and increasing earth­quake risk throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, now they want to build a dangerous pipeline through the heart of Kentucky.

The orig­inal pipeline route would’ve gone through hundreds of acres of historic farm­land that an order of nuns have lived on for nearly 200 years. But after the Sisters of Loretto refused to let surveyors on their land, the pipeline company had to change their plans.” 

The Loretto Community, founded in 1812 as the Sisters of Loretto, is a congre­ga­tion of Catholic vowed Sisters and lay Co-members. “Our members continue to live out the Community’s mission to “work for justice and act for peace because the Gospel urges us.” Traditionally a teaching order, the Loretto Community has expanded its work into many fields to promote justice, including educa­tion, health­care, elder care, envi­ron­mental stew­ard­ship and advo­cacy. Learn more.

At the Sisters’ Loretto Community website one can view a YouTube video of the singing, anti-fracking nuns and get a feel for their endless endeavors on behalf of those opposed to the inva­sive pipeline.

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