Joyce Meyer

Abuse of power in women's congregations is beginning to come to light because of a greater sensitivity to sexual abuse and increasing awareness that sexual abuse is an extreme expression of abuse of power.

The upcoming International Union of Superiors General plenary focuses on leaders and how they are handling the vulnerabilities they experienced through COVID-19 and other challenges. 

GSR Today - Even now that Sr. Shahnaz Bhatti is in Italy, "safe and sound, every time I hear a knock at the door or hear the sound of a shutter moving in the wind, my heart leaps and I am terrified that someone has come to get me."

The Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa has endured for nearly 50 years, despite being not often recognized or fully engaged by the church hierarchy or civic communities. I recently participated in a miracle: its 18th assembly.

Good Shepherd sisters in Mozambique have ministered to families marginalized by lack of employment and education since 1887. Now they're helping to ease suffering for people fleeing Cabo Delgado province, the epicenter of a national crisis involving an extremist power struggle.

GSR Today - I felt compelled to write about the sisters who continue to give their lives for others in conflict areas. We have heard about their selfless service throughout the tragedies in Haiti, South Sudan and Afghanistan.

GSR Today - A new study gets its data comes from on-the-ground practitioners working in Good Shepherd ministries — practitioners who live with the realities of what girls experience every day in Asia and the Pacific.

We know from Scripture that the God we seek longs to be found, and that we have an innate capacity for genuine, direct experience of God, often called mystical. Reclaiming this connection may take us back to childhood.

There has been much written recently about rising incidents of abuse and violence against women, and through conversations about this, I also learned of another kind of abuse: spiritual / religious abuse.

Doris Reisinger, a former nun, is a clergy sex abuse survivor who has written two books about spiritual and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. She teaches at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

GSR Today - When my brother, Roger, died this summer from COVID-19, our family was able to gather virtually to mourn together. It was far from ideal. So, what happens to our grief when it stays buried within, when we are not even aware of it?

GSR Today: Although not a researcher myself, I love reading studies, particularly about religious life. This new endeavor of intentionally training sisters in Africa for data collection and church research will change the landscape of religious life.

GSR Today - More than 50 sisters from around the world supported by the Hilton Foundation gathered online to talk about challenges during COVID-19 and create a community of practice. What struck me profoundly about the session was how it was also building spiritual connections.

GSR Today - As vowed religious, committed to the Gospel of justice and compassion, we need to become authentically intercultural in our thinking and action at all levels: local, national and international.

In Cameroon, Sr. Louisa Abid Sister of St. Therese of the Child Jesus of Buea, has been the health coordinator for the Bamenda Archdiocese three years, about as long as the civil war has been going on. She is responsible for 25 facilities, including five hospitals, 11 medical centers and six primary health centers.

A sister tells GSR that Haitians are coping with the pandemic largely on their own, as resources dwindle and misformation spreads. The future lies again in the resiliency of the people themselves.

GSR Today - In these times of confusion, chaos and fear that recall the story of the road to Emmaus, leaders of religious women and men in Europe and the U.S. ponder questions about the future.

GSR Today - Executive leaders of four women religious organizations gave overviews of the heavy toll the pandemic has taken on their regions. 

GSR Today - When I went to Zambia as a missionary in 1981, religious life looked very different than it does today. In the past four or five years, looking to the future, many of the East African women religious, locally founded groups and provinces of international congregations whose membership is primarily African have been reflecting on the sustainability of their unique congregational charisms and spiritualities.

GSR Today - The Holy Rosary Sisters wanted to help remote communities of Zambia discover their potential for development. Chipapa was a neglected region, so it fit their mission perfectly.