Dan Stockman

Plus, cloistered Illinois sisters adopt solar energy; an Indian court denies bail for a nun facing arrest after she was accused of conversion; services held for slain Haitian sisters.

Spared the death penalty, the man who murdered an Ursuline sister 30 years ago writes to ask them for forgiveness. They give it, and transform their healing into activism.

Amid declining numbers of U.S. sisters, many are asking what will happen to their associates once the sisters cannot lead them anymore or if the congregation no longer exists.

There is always a fear of the unknown, but one Catholic sister told GSR national correspondent Dan Stockman that, at least right now, fear may be the biggest obstacle to being effective.

Fearing President-elect Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations, sisters and Catholic groups organize support for undocumented immigrants living in uncertainty.

US congregations of women religious released statements following President-elect Donald Trump's victory, calling for hope and sharing their determination to serve the vulnerable.

"We want to be on public record as having called out this fraud so that if the outcome of next month's election is contested in Pennsylvania our integrity will not be called into question," the community said.

For 20 years, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia have welcomed their neighbors, whether they are immigrants or people experiencing drug addiction and homelessness.

At her Sept. 3 funeral, Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane's friends, family and loved ones reflect on her life of advocacy to reform the church.

Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane, who fought for decades for the equality of women in the Catholic Church — famously publicly challenging the pope on the issue in 1979 — died Aug. 22. She was 87.

After experiencing consolidation of Sisters of St. Joseph communities, Brazda understands what congregations are going through as they spin off ministries, sell buildings and campuses, and even look to completion.

The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament sold their convent in Philadelphia and moved into a retirement community, a Lutheran facility where most of the other residents are Jewish and much of the staff is Muslim.

Dawn's Place is a yearlong program, but that is just the very start of the journey survivors are on, says Sr. Meaghan Patterson, executive director.

Among myriad services, the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center offers a monthly food pantry to hundreds of residents in Camden, New Jersey.

A shareholder's resolution led by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace calls for Citigroup to examine its efforts to respect the human rights of Indigenous people in the projects it finances and invests in. 

The apostolic visitation and doctrinal assessment were controversial, but 10 years after those tense times, sisters say their relationship with officials in Rome is radically different. 

The filing includes an affidavit from Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach warning that once the association of contemplative orders the Vatican appointed to govern the sisters is in control, it can do anything it wishes, including taking the monastery.

"We are Christians, which means we don't have a choice. … That's how we're supposed to be recognized — by the way we love each other, by the way we love our neighbors."

In dozens of projects across the country, Catholic women religious are transitioning assets such as land and buildings into tools to meet other needs. 

Sisters say the event was an opportunity for younger sisters to see each other, to know they are not alone and that they are part of something that goes beyond congregations and borders.