Catholic News Service

When it comes to social distancing, cloistered religious communities are way ahead of everyone.

Individual rights and freedom obviously are essential for human flourishing, but human happiness depends a lot on relationships — kinship and friendship, but also the broader common good, said Dominican Sr. Helen Alford.

Two missionary sisters captured by rebels in northern Mozambique were released unharmed after 24 days, according to their congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery.

Sr. Catherine McNamee, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet and longtime Catholic educational leader, died Aug. 30 at the age of 89. She was living at her order's residence in St. Paul, Minnesota.

On a bright and clear January afternoon, Bishop Oswaldo Escobar Aguilar walked into a cemetery and gently dusted off a white name plate on top of a sky-blue block of tombs. Making plans for the year ahead, he told secretary Violeta Esmeralda Serrano nearby that they needed to make sure the tombs were decorated with flowers Dec. 2.

Sr. Elaine Roulet, a Sister of St. Joseph of Brentwood who was an acknowledged pioneer in women's prison ministry, died Aug. 13 of heart failure at the order's Stella Maris Convent in Queens. She was 89 and had been in religious life for 71 years.

The Rosary Sisters' School in Gaza prepared for alternative distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they had not prepared for the possibility of an electricity shortage.

Sr. Stephanie Baliga, a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist of Chicago, will run a marathon Aug. 23 on a treadmill in the basement of her community's convent in the city's West Humboldt Park neighborhood. Why? Because she promised. And because she is trying to break the world record for a women's treadmill marathon.

U.S. Daughter of Charity Sr. Ann Sauvé, a member of the administrative staff at the order's Sacred Heart Hospital in this Beirut suburb, will not easily forget Aug. 4 and the massive explosion in the port of Beirut.

The abuse occurring within women's religious orders deserves more attention from the media and must be remedied, said an influential Jesuit journal.

Lewis, who was an icon of the civil rights movement and a colleague of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died July 17 after a six-month battle with advanced pancreatic cancer. He was 80. Lewis represented Georgia's 5th Congressional District from 1987 until his death.

The collective, supported by several Catholic charities — including the Pontifical Mission, the Comboni Sisters, Spanish Manos Unidas and a parish in Switzerland, has been providing a source of income and support for Israel's most vulnerable population of African women asylum-seekers, and its work has become even more critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Indian bishop, facing court proceedings on charges of raping a nun, tested positive for COVID-19, reported ucanews.com.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni instructed security officials to carry out a thorough investigation to track down robbers who attacked a convent 75 miles west of the capital.

The Catholic Health Association July 7 said it was "deeply regrettable" that President Donald Trump has formally withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization during a global pandemic.

In a 7-2 ruling July 8, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump administration rules that give employers more ability to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage in their health plans.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post daily newspaper, Sr. Norma Pimentel, known for her work with migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border near Brownsville, Texas, made a public plea July 6 to keep an eye on the plight of asylum-seekers during the coronavirus pandemic.

St. Mary's Mission Hospital is one of the structures marked for demolition in a Kenyan government move to repossess illegally acquired Ngong forest land.

The Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood feed about 200 children in Nairobi’s informal settlements of Kawangware and Riruta. But with the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, they are expanding their reach.

The head of the Catholic Health Association has urged President Donald Trump to reconsider his decision to pull the United States out of the United Nations' World Health Organization.