Rhina Guidos

With their ministries and presence in towns that continue to suffer from Colombia's 50-year-long conflict, nuns contribute to the peace process through accompaniment.

GSR Today - Even as crowds gather at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe below, eight Discalced Carmelite sisters maintain a contemplative space in their often-unnoticed monastery, which celebrated 130 years in May. 

A group of Catholic sisters gathered Nov. 28-30 in Mexico City to showcase and talk about their work with vulnerable communities in Latin America with funding from the U.S.-based Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. 

In welcoming attendees of CLAR's IV Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Religious Life, CLAR president Sr. Liliana Franco Echeverri said that "our structures are in need of renewal," because "there are structures that suffocate and ways of proceeding that deny what is human."

"We pray daily that a nonviolent solution may be found to bring lasting peace and security to all of God’s people in the region, a safe return of the hostages, and an end to unfathomable suffering." 

Contemplative sisters participate in the Synod of Bishops from afar through prayer.

Any discussion on the mission of women in the church needs to be accompanied by examining how Jesus treated women, and that is what should be imitated, Company of Mary Sr. Liliana Franco said at the Synod of Bishops.

Even as Catholic women take a historic step as voting members of the Synod of Bishops, former Irish President Mary McAleese slammed the Vatican Oct. 13 in a parallel gathering in Rome calling for more equality for women.

Two Catholic sisters taking part in Pope Francis' summit on the church's future told GSR the synod is different than expected. "I'm experiencing and witnessing the dismantling of the hierarchical," said Mercy Sr. Angela Perez.

Sr. Patricia Murray said that Pope Francis' process for the synod on synodality is helping "shift the feeling that the truth resides at the top of the hierarchy."

The increase in migration has shelters along the route at capacity, but places such as CAFEMIN in Mexico City, run by the Josephine sisters, are among the few stops where migrants are still welcomed, despite overcrowding.

Sr. Maria Cimperman described Pope Francis' reimagined process for the Oct. 4-29  Synod of Bishops as a "walking together," even if prelates still hold the majority of votes.  

A Catholic sister in Nicaragua told GSR that she feels indignation when she hears Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, the country's vice president, refer to themselves as Christians.

At an event organized by the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious, sisters shared experiences of helping victims and other work against human trafficking, a "profound violence to the body of humanity."

A course in September at the headquarters of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in Rome will help women religious learn more about migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. 

It may not break summer blockbuster records, but the film "With This Light," about an orphan who became a Franciscan sister and made it her life's mission to help other orphans in her native Honduras, may melt hearts. 

Catholics at the U.S.-Mexico border, including many sisters, are working to better assess how to help migrants and to talk about what they have learned and how to go forward post-Title 42. 

The Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ announced July 3 they've left their post in Nicaragua, becoming the latest community of nuns to leave as Catholics see increasing persecution by the government.

The president of the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious encouraged women and men religious to go forward with renewed enthusiasm, compassion and greater joy amid multiple challenges.

In a meeting of women and men religious from Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn proposed a "new beginning" that would include groups of consecrated life from all corners of the Americas.