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“Sister Timothy, are you a nun?” Well, I do wear a long brown habit and I have professed three vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, in consecration to God forever. But am I a nun? My name is SISTER Timothy Marie. But am I a nun? Here is the answer. In a practical, everyday sense people have no hesitation about identifying me as a carmelitesheaderCatholic nun. Yet, in the technical sense of the real definition I am not. So, what am I? I have entered a consecrated life, and I am a woman religious. I am a sister. I’ll explain....

Leadership: Say this for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: He routinely takes principled stands on tough issues, even if it puts him at odds with his own party. Case in point: His comments this week in support of nuns and Israel. With the White House filing a new brief signalling it intends to force Catholic Sisters to violate their religious beliefs, the Texas Republican strongly defended religious liberty. Despite its defeat in the Hobby Lobby case, the White House last Monday was back at it, filing a brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado explaining a rule...

Three elderly Italian nuns were sexually assaulted and murdered in twin attacks in their convent in the capital of Burundi, police said today as a hunt was launched for their killers. Police initially reported that two nuns were stabbed to death yesterday afternoon. The killer then battered one of the two with a rock, before fleeing the convent. Italian authorities named the first two killed as Olga Raschietti, 83, and Lucia Pulici, 75, both Roman Catholic nuns. But in the early hours of today morning, another nun in the same convent was killed, her body beaten and head hacked off....

Today's generation of nuns are progressive women, two things the Church isn't used to Nuns are an endangered species. They are dying and not being replaced. More Florida Atheist Kicked Out of City Meeting For Refusing to Stand During InvocationHate Crime Laws: What the Amish Beard Cutting Case Means for the Rest of UsBrits on Edge: Police Get Power to Seize Terror Suspect Passports NBC NewsSkiing Standoff Could Be Downhill Run for Park City NBC NewsMajor Shift: Germany to Arm Anti-ISIS Forces in Iraq NBC News If you think the news is bad now, a world without nuns would be...

On Friday, the Obama administration revised the HHS mandate rules — the first revision since losing to Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court. The revisions provide no relief from the mandate and essentially restate how pro-life groups, like the Little Sisters, will have to pay huge fines if the violate the mandate. The upshot of the new rules? As Arina Grossu, Director for the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, tells LifeNews, it’s “the threat of crippling fines on non-profits who stand up for their freedom of conscience.” littlesisters2Congressman Chris Smith, the top pro-life advocate in the...

When I entered I saw what I had written. I wanted to say a word to you and the word is “joy”. Wherever there are consecrated people, seminarians, men and women religious, young people, there is joy, there is always joy! It is the joy of freshness, the joy of following Jesus; the joy that the Holy Spirit gives us, not the joy of the world. There is joy! but — where is joy born? Joy is born from the gratuitousness of an encounter! It is hearing someone say, but not necessarily with words: “You are important to me”. This...

Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends, You might be surprised that we are writing this letter so soon since you received the last one. But events are happening so quickly here shocking everybody because of its brutality and cruelty. On the night of the Feast of Transfiguration shooting started after mid-night, and continued until noon of the next day. On the morning of the sixth of June many shells fell on Karakosh. Between 8:30 and 9:00 a shell fell on a house and it killed two boys (nine and five years old) who were playing in the garden; and it also...

Today, in cloisters and schools around America, the sound of young voices is ringing out. These sisters’ voices resound in classrooms, lift in chant, laugh on the playing field — and bring their fresh, healthy orthodox Catholicism into the spiritual desert. In September 1971, Sister Imelda Marie, O.P. stepped into our eighth grade classroom. She was greeted by a stunned silence. Sister smiled awkwardly, and then turned on her heel to write pre-algebra equations on the chalkboard. From the back of the classroom came a stifled giggle, then a raised hand. “Sister, where’s your habit?” Sister Imelda was a formal...

It is tradition among the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. The night before perpetual profession there’s a ‘Bride of Christ Shower’ (simple, yet festive reception) for the Sister(s) professing perpetual vows. Candles and lights helped create a warm atmosphere of joyful sharing on Sister Pamela Catherine’s August 1, 2014 party. Franciscan Bridal Shower BrideWho comes? The party is planned by those Sisters in Temporary Vows. Sisters on our General Administration are invited along with any Sisters who served as a support community for the Sister Pamela Catherine or for the Sisters in Temporary Profession that summer.

Along with Mass and adoration, the Dominican sisters at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, N.J., gather for prayer seven times a day. Courtesy photo Within the walls of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey, rows of simple crosses mark the graves of sisters who have gone before. It’s a potent symbol of life in the monastery, where women enter cloistered life intending never to leave, even in death.These Dominican nuns have been in this place of peace for almost 100 years, sustaining the Church every day through their prayer...

Yesterday, Senate Democrats their bid to approve legislation to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby and other companies from being forced to comply with the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. Republicans were able to sustain their filibuster against the bill atedcruz7nd prevailed on a 56-43 vote, with Democrats voting to move to a vote on the pro-abortion bill and almost all Republicans uniting to vote against it. During the debate, pro-life Texas Senator Ted Cruz let Democrats have it. “If you’re litigating against nuns, you have probably done something wrong,”...

Over the past month, the public has been treated to a series of news stories alleging that Irish nuns threw almost 800 babies into a septic tank outside a home for “fallen women” and children in the 20th century. As it turns out, the “mass grave” story is a hoax. To read Bill Donohue’s article, “Ireland’s ‘Mass Grave’ Hysteria,” click at link. It is being widely distributed in Ireland, England, and the United States.

Sister Donna Quinn, a Palos Hills resident, attended the last two and is flying to this one with four other nuns. Rev. Nan Conser, a retired United Church of Christ minister in Golf, never went before but is going with a group of 10 clergy and lay people. Rev. Larry Greenfield, an American Baptist minister who leads Hyde Park Union Church, couldn't make it last time, but said he wouldn't miss this one for anything.

1.) Fight for the rights of the unborn. 2.) Think no less of a baby/infant/child brought to you without any parent, without any Godparents, as you do not know the future. Which to you is better: baptizing a baby brought to you by good RC parents,that God knows will grow up to deny your faith and be a hell-raiser, or one that asas no one there with him/her or born out ofof wedlock to lapsed parents that God knows will turn out to be righteous?. Who cares about then and there? God told Samuel that He can see what no...

1.) An infant is baptized, is raised by believing parents and later when older turns from the faith. 2.) An infant is baptized, has no believing parents to be raised by, and when older doesn't turn from the faith. Given that the antithesis exists for 1 & 2, wouldn't it be prudent for the priest to baptize the fortunate infant as well as the unfortunate, as either could remain faithful when older, show perseverance against high odds, and no priest knows the future - only God Almighty? Given that only God knows the future, perhaps withholding baptism isn't an option...

Few of us are inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth, and that applies in spades to journalists running with a sensational news story. But even by normal media standards, recent reports about the bones of 796 babies being found in the septic tank of an Irish orphanage betray a degree of cynicism and irresponsibility rarely surpassed by allegedly reputable news organizations. Although the media attributed the “dumped in a septic tank” allegation to Catherine Corless, a local amateur historian, she denies making it. Her attempt to correct the record was reported by the Irish Times newspaper on...

I haven't seen the [AP Stylebook's] new religion chapter, but I have seen how the press generally reports on Catholicism -- and it seems like there are already some agreed-upon guidelines. For instance: Catholics in the news. If an actor, a football player, a CEO, or any other reasonably decent, successful or attractive person is a practicing Catholic, that is never relevant, and any reference to receiving the sacraments or belief in God must be edited out for clarity and brevity. However, if the story is about a transvestite stripper, a comedian who draws heavily on the comedic value of...

On May 8, the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR) issued a statement on their April 30 meeting with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.The statement is significant in that it’s a hopeful sign that the organization has heard the concerns expressed by Rome and may, in fact, be ready to listen–valuing its canonical status which has been conferred by the Holy See more than it values its autonomy.Because it’s so important a document, I’m permitting the Sisters to represent themselves, reprinting it below in its entirety.* * * * *First, the background. I outlined the problem in...

For half a century, they’ve run a gratis guesthouse for Holocaust victims. Now an era is ending, and the nuns themselves are at something of a loss ...The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary is a Lutheran-based order, but operates independently. It began as a Christian organization founded in 1947 by German theologian and intellectual Dr. Klara Schlink, along with Erika Madauss. As president of the Women’s Division of the German Student Christian Movement from 1933 to 1935, Schlink refused to comply with Nazi policy barring Jewish-born students from meetings. During WWII, Schlink was summoned twice by the Gestapo because of her...

Eight times a day, a group of nuns files into a chapel in their rural northwest Missouri monastery to chant and worship. Quite unexpectedly, this private, prayerful pursuit has made the Benedictines of Mary a chart-topping recording industry curiosity. After being named Billboard's No. 1 Classical Traditional Artist of 2012 and 2013, the nuns released their third album, called "Lent At Ephesus," Feb. 11 on the De Montfort Music/Decca/Universal Classics label.