Sisters in Ministry: The Gospel in Action
Religious Sisters in Africa: The Risks of Working on the Frontline
A majority of religious sisters are working in hospitals as nurses, doctors or other hospital staff to serve patients with COVID-19. Others run schools to educate children, projects to serve individuals living in poverty, and homes to care for the elderly. Sisters have also been active in slums and poor villages across the continent to…
Africa: The Difficult Journey of Departure from a Religious Institute
In a new book, “The Future of Religious Life in Africa”, which was crafted by a team of 12 members of the Clergy, Religious and Lay academics working or who have worked in Africa, Sr. Marren Rose Awiti, a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loretto Sisters) and a Canon Lawyer explores widely…
Cameroon: Continued Violence Threatens Religious Sisters
It was June 30, 2020, about 3:00 p.m. in Shisong, Cameroon. I was standing on the balcony of the convent infirmary when I saw people running towards the nearby St. Elizabeth’s Catholic General Hospital and Cardiac Center operated by my congregation, the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis. I could feel the panic and understood immediately that…
Cameroon: Bamenda Sisters Come to Aid of Refugees in Nigeria
I am a Tertiary Sister of Saint Francis, or TSSF, and in February 2019, I received the blessing from my provincial superior, Sr. Roberta Feh, to contribute my energy and skills to respond to the needs of this “new” mission in our province. In fact, the Conference of Religious of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda, or…
Women Religious: Authority and Abuse of Power
The Church has often dealt with the issue of abuse, even in recent times, both at the level of reflection and in terms of operational measures and protocols. However, the focus is mostly on the sexual and psychological abuse of children by ministers of the Church, especially priests. These are undoubtedly the predominant concerns, but…
Thoughts on the Coronavirus – A Poem by Sr Isabel Kelly FMSJ
THOUGHTS ON THE CORONAVIRUS There’s a season for everything At present it’s the coronavirus Who would have thought That such a pandemic Would actually inspire us. Our lives have been changed We have no choice Coronavirus has the loudest voice. It came so suddenly No time to prepare The whole world Is at a standstill…
‘I Never Operate on a Patient without a Prayer’- Surgeon Sr Mary Ajiko, Soroti, Uganda
Sr. Mary Margaret Ajiko serves humanity outside the jurisdiction of the church as a surgeon at the Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, a government hospital in Soroti, a small town in eastern Uganda. Ajiko, who has worked for a decade at the hospital, is dedicated to serving humanity through her profession. This has made her a…
Kenya: Sisters at Rang’ala Baby Home Creatively Bridge Funding Gap
The high number of maternal deaths in the region prompted the sisters to set up Rang’ala Baby Home to help children who had lost their mothers make it to their first birthday. The home was established in 1939 by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of St. Joseph. They later handed the institution to the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph,…
Mill Hill Sisters in Ecuador
Sisters Nuala, Rosemary and Yenny serve in a parish in Puerto Quito, Ecuador. The parish has 90 recintos, or outstations, and several days a week Nuala lives in one of them in a place called Buenos Aires. She writes about her ministry there: “I coordinate catechesis, give prebaptism talks, pre communion talks to parent and…
Cameroon: How to Persuade People Covid-19 is not a White Man’s Invention?
A Spanish nun serving as a doctor in the Central African nation of Cameroon says the major challenge she is facing at the present time is making residents believe that COVID-19 is a real pandemic. “The big challenge is above all to make people aware that Covid-19 exists because here, many people think that it…
Franciscan Sisters of St. Anna, Lwak, Reach out to Flood Victims
Members of a Kenya-based Order of nuns have reached out to over 200 needy families in Western Kenya affected by floods following ongoing heavy rains in the East African nation, one of the nuns involved in the Thursday, April 30 initiative has told ACI Africa. “As Franciscan Sisters of St. Anna (FSSA), Lwak, we thought…
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