The challenges of COVID-19 have forced religious communities to adapt their vocational process. Like the Dutch Trappists of Koningshoeven , a community of Benedictine women in Arkansas has largely moved their vocation and discernment process online. The director of vocations, Sr. Judith Timmerman, holds online discernment retreats, and communicates with [...]
Shannen Dee Williams, an assistant professor of history at Villanova University, is writing a book on the history of black religious sisters in America and the way they took on racism and institutional barriers to entry in religious life. Their story is, she says, an overlooked one, and one that [...]
Fr. Pedro Opeka, CM has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Opeka was born in Argentina, but has spent nearly three decades ministering to the very poor living near landfills in Madagascar. His association, the Akamasoa humanitarian association helps provide food, water, education, and business opportunities for [...]
On February 2nd, Pope Francis preached for the 25th World Day for Consecrated life. His theme was patience: how Simeon was patient in waiting for the Lord and how those in religious life must be patient, too, whether personally, in community life, or with the world. Read Francis's full homily [...]
Koningshoeven Abbey in the Netherlands has introduced a new idea for those discerning entrance into their Trappist monastery: an electronic, or virtual, novitiate, which they call "eNovice." This system does not seem to be a replacement for the in-person novitiate, but rather is a tool that those interested in the monastery [...]
On February 2nd, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Religious Formation Conference, the Religious Brothers Conference, and the National Religious Vocation Conference held a meeting to discuss religious life through the lens of Pope Francis's new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. The event was [...]
The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) released a letter on January 18th, 2021 in honor of the upcoming World Day for Consecrated Life on February 2nd, 2021. With this letter, we wish to lessen the physical distance imposed on us for so many [...]
“Fratelli Tutti: To see what really matters” was a talk originally delivered to men and women religious in the United States as a webinar sponsored by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men on January 21, 2021. Given the time constraints of the talk, Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, could only [...]
Fratelli Tutti: To see what really matters Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J. Under Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development Address to the Conference of Major Superiors of Men January 21, 2021 This was a talk given the men and women religious during a webinar sponsored by the Conference [...]
Dr. Peggy Delmas recently published a qualitative account of three early scientific pioneers, all of them women religious. She found their experience in scientific research to be marked by marginalization and religious discrimination, but they also enjoyed remarkable support from their congregations and often saw their work as extension of [...]