Alice Drajea, superior general, Sisters of the Sacred Heart, South Sudan
(Courtesy of International Union of Superiors General)

Sr. Alice Drajea resonated deeply with the vulnerability theme because in South Sudan, where her congregation was founded in 1954, when the country was still part of Sudan, the Sacred Heart Sisters have lived in vulnerability consistently. In 1963 the sisters were all expelled from Sudan and fled to Uganda without any support. But, committed to their religious life, they were resilient and new life grew out of the disaster. Some returned to Sudan and some remained in Uganda, she said, like “the phoenix rising out of the ashes.”

But, today, not much has changed as fragility, war and violence, poverty, and ecological and financial insecurity have continued to be their plight, along with the whole of society of South Sudan. For her and her sisters, an added vulnerability painful to them is that, both in the society and in the diocese, the sisters have “no footing, no voice, no inclusion.” She described vulnerability as not being listened to as a person or as a congregation, when decisions made by congregational leadership are ignored and rejected by those in diocesan authority. It seems as though they are “not even recognized as part of the Catholic Church by church authority.”

When asked further about personal vulnerability, the pain was palpable in Drajea’s voice. The sisters live among the poor who have many needs, and even though desiring to respond, they have few resources themselves to make a difference. The number of refugees and displaced people throughout the country at times feels “out of control” and creates an environment of insecurity. Insecurity then gives rise to fear and blame that is often projected onto the sisters. The sisters feel this burden deeply, but can do nothing to fix things. Part of the projection is the people’s belief that the sisters are connected to the resources of the bishop without understanding this is not so. They continue to expect the sisters to do more because they are “church,” with access to the “church” resources. The sisters wonder if the tragedy of their two sisters being shot and killed last August coming from the 100-year anniversary celebration of a church service in Sudan was a consequence of this false belief.

COVID-19 has been another painful time. In isolation, the Sacred Heart leaders wondered how they and their sisters could cope with the impact of separation. They had no internet for Zoom meetings like some other groups but they tried their best with phone calls now and again. The leaders were concerned about the well-being of their sisters in Uganda who faced even more restrictions from their government inhibiting them from engaging in any kind of “in person” ministry which kept them very confined.

When asked about her dream of synodality, Drajea said she longs for greater collaboration among religious congregations and healthier intercultural and intergenerational living. It is needed in communities, but also in her nation where there are 64 different tribes and cultures who need the sisters’ witness of living peacefully with diversity.

Marie Antoinette Saadé, congregational leader, Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family
(Courtesy of International Union of Superiors General)

When asked to share the current situation in Lebanon, Sr. Marie Antoinette Saadé responded: “We are actually experiencing a descent into hell. It is the complete collapse of the whole country. … We are struggling with social changes, political issues, corruption, economic crisis. … Our country was once prosperous. The bright and decent people of Lebanon, full of potential, are now reduced to live in poverty.” She then said that she feels the UISG assembly theme is prophetic because it joins all of us together. For some, she noted, it has become a “peak of helplessness and impoverishment” and facing it alone is impossible. “We have to stand together.”

“On a personal level the theme of vulnerability is very precious,” she said. Saadé told stories of two personal conversions at the university as a student. First, when she was introduced to Jurgen Moltmann’s book Le Dieu Crucifié (The Crucified God), she realized that not only Jesus suffered and died on the cross, but also the Father, when Jesus cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” She described this cry as a visceral link of the Holy Spirit between the Persons. Jesus’ agonized words reflected the humility of God, giving his life away for us humans. “In front of this God who gives himself, everything becomes relative, everything.”

Her second conversion was during her walks to class passing by homeless people sleeping at apartment doors. Her heart ached at the sight because even though she had little herself, as a student, she had enough. She pondered “how much man is capable of to pass by lots of suffering without noticing, without looking at the faces of these people. … I used to stop and to start a conversation with the people, and say to myself, ‘This is Christ in front of me who is poor and abandoned.’ This is an old experience but it marked my life forever.”

When asked about vulnerability as a leader, particularly during the recent COVID-19 years, she related many instances of crises for neighbors and among her sisters on mission. “With many people knocking at our doors … I ask the Lord every day: Take me by the hand. Be in front of me, go ahead, steer this ship, and do not forsake us.” She repeated her familiar mantra about the necessity of not struggling through things alone, and practiced this as she tried to stay with her sisters when they also faced discouragement and suffering.

As current president of the national assembly of religious superiors, she travels to visit them and tries to bring encouragement and hope. In the midst of the suffering, gratitude is also the forefront of her prayer and attitude, remembering all the good God has showered on her, her sisters, the country and world. “I cling to this hope despite everything … and not dwell in gloominess.”

Morgante asked about her experience of synodality in her congregation and in the church of Lebanon. “This is my second mandate as superior general — my first year of the second mandate [term of office]. In my first six years my main concern was to live synodality.” She then described how she continues this commitment as leader of the conference for religious striving for communion with the Lebanon Maronite Church and other religions. In her congregation, synodality remains a major theme. This universal church synod effort has encouraged them forward.

Lebanon, she noted, is a country of pluralism in religion and, because of the country’s dire situation, everyone needs to journey together. She recalled Pope John Paul II’s description of her country: “Lebanon is more than a country, it is a message” — a message of a country where pluralism is valued, enjoyed and committed to walking together and changing the world together, a world that very much needs changing, promoting the role of women, protecting children and living joyfully. Saadé ended with: “We cannot but be together.” It was moving to feel the passion for this working together that Saadé exuded.

It was a privilege for me to listen to these leaders share their stories of tragedy, pain and yet hope that each has found in the unique struggles of these past two-plus years. Also, as I listened I became very aware of the spiritual depth these women were led into as courage, perseverance and love were cultivated.

[Sister Joyce Meyer is a member of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is on the boards of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Medicines for Humanity and the International Foundation of the Good Shepherd Sisters and has served as international liaison to women religious for Global Sisters Report since January 2014.]

The planning committee for the Aug. 23-26 assembly for the Association of Consecrated Women of East and Central Africa, or ACWECA, pose for a photo ahead of the 2021 assembly. (Courtesy of ACWECA)

I recently participated in a miracle: the 18th assembly of the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa, or ACWECA.

Why do I say “miracle”? This extraordinary association of women religious conferences from 10 countries with hundreds of different cultures and languages and a variety of national political systems has persisted in its purpose for nearly 50 years. The members represent 280 religious institutes of about 35,000 sisters with 41 general superiors.

It has taken women of determined prophetic courage, grit and faith to keep this association thriving in supporting sisters to live a vibrant religious life through programs of spiritual and human formation, education in leadership and religious life, and a forum for sharing the struggles that evolving organizations experience.

This was clearly expressed to me in an email from Sr. Prisca Matenga of the Daughters of the Redeemer, former chair of ACWECA and official assembly observer:

“Tribe, culture, language, limited resources was never a barrier, but rather, the spirit of the Lord was food for our quest of togetherness, hence ACWECA has grown from strength to strength. As women religious in the region, the Sisters are aware that ‘Consecrated life is the very heart of the Church, a decisive element for her mission’ and in coming together there is deep sharing of our very existence. There is sharing of joy, pain, and challenges we meet as religious, and empowering the Sisters.”

I encountered the first iteration of ACWECA in Zambia when I worked as the secretary for the Zambia Association of Sisterhoods when that conference hosted an assembly for the association in 1981. It was then called the Sisters of East Africa Study Conference, initiated in 1974 by the regional conference of bishops, the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa. These bishops were founding new local congregations after the Second Vatican Council and saw the need for the young women entering, many with little academic education or knowledge about religious life, to learn together.

More than 175 women participated in the Aug. 23-26 assembly for the Association of Consecrated Women of East and Central Africa, or ACWECA (Courtesy of ACWECA.

“We did not have the internal capacities and skills” to manage this new life, and “we needed a united voice that could be heard as we raised our issues,” said Sr. Agnes Wamuyu Ngure, a Franciscan Sister of St. Elizabeth, official ACWECA observer and former secretary for the Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya.

ACWECA is now the oldest enduring regional group of women religious on the African continent. It currently encompasses 10 countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan (which was added after its independence in 2011), plus associate member Zimbabwe.

“The Sisters of member conferences design different action plans that address similar issues and from these ACWECA leadership formulates a comprehensive plan that is then shared by all,” Sr. Eneless Chimbali of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary, official assembly observer and past secretary for ACWECA, told me in an email. “The other unique thing of ACWECA is that [it] has a functional secretariat to implement the activities decided on. This unity becomes a source of power and force for the region for fundraising and addressing common challenges.”

The enduring, active presence of ACWECA is itself a prophetic statement to the church and the world about the significance of women religious in Africa and their potential to be leaders of faith and human development.

Board members of the Association of Consecrated Women of East and Central Africa, or ACWECA, discuss the Aug. 23-26 assembly. (Courtesy of ACWECA)

[Sister Joyce Meyer is a member of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is on the boards of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Medicines for Humanity and the International Foundation of the Good Shepherd Sisters and has served as international liaison to women religious for Global Sisters Report since January 2014.]

Good Shepherd Sr. Eva Ribeiro, in white blouse, and project manager Pirai Oriente, in red T-shirt with white trim, work with displaced families from Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique. (Courtesy of Eva Ribeiro)

Mozambique seems to be a part of the world many know little about. I certainly knew very little about the East African nation until I traveled there in 2008 as the executive director of the Hilton Fund for Sisters. Traveling from place to place, I witnessed much suffering, particularly in rural areas: lack of water, food, education and health care. At that time the country, including the sisters, were still recovering from the impact of independence from Portugal in 1975 when the government nationalized all the schools and health care centers. Sisters had lost everything and, as often happens without experienced government employees taking over the administration, the institutions began to decline sharply in quality and services.

Consequently, when they can no longer manage, such governments return the educational and health care centers to the sisters, having done little or nothing to build them up. This means the sisters must start over from scratch. Governments rarely offer financial assistance for rehabilitation. Rural areas suffer the most, as they are basically abandoned by governments that focus on city development. This seems to be one reason Cabo Delgado has become the epicenter of the national crisis involving an extremist power struggle.

Day by day, as I listened to the paltry news coverage of the tragedy going from bad to worse, I wondered if any sisters could help us understand what is happening and how they are responding to the crisis there. I eventually found the enlightening story of four Good Shepherd Sisters who are living and serving in the thick of it.

They began by describing the Cabo Delgado region in northeastern Mozambique, where insurgents are causing monumental damage and chaos. Radicalized Islamic groups have been fostering unrest and terrorism along the East African Coast of the Indian Ocean for many years. Conditions worsened in 2017, Cabo Delgado was terrorized and attacked by jihadist gangs. Cyclone Kenneth struck in 2019, exacerbating the instability of Cabo Delgado caused by al-Shabaab, Islamist militants with ties to al-Qaeda. The local people, already frustrated and angry at the government’s unwillingness to listen, began joining al-Shabaab and adding energy to the confusion and terror. 

According to the U.S. Institute of Peace, motivation might also have been fueled by the memory of Cabo Delgado as the birthplace of Mozambique’s liberation from Portuguese colonialism. The people grew weary of government corruption; police colluding with illicit gems, wildlife and drugs; human rights abuses; and ancestral land grabs for foreign interests. Radicalized groups have occupied strategic areas of the north, where gas and oil fields have been recently discovered.

Already, nearly 800,000 people, particularly women and children, have left the Cabo Delgado area — some for neighboring countries; those who choose to stay in Mozambique, went to  Nampula, the country’s third largest city just to the south.

Four Good Shepherd sisters came to Mozambique in 1997 and to Nampula province in 2002 at the invitation of the local bishop. Later, to allow young sisters to study in local universities, they established a house in Nampula town, where some moved to continue their education. The sisters belong to the Angola/Mozambique Good Shepherd unit, citizens of two of the six Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa. Upon arrival in the Nampula region, they settled in Namaponda, a small, rural town that grew as families moved from remote areas.

The sisters began searching for the best way to address the needs of families marginalized by lack of employment and education. They eventually set up an adult literacy program, an informal day school and nutrition program for the children in the neighborhood of Serra da Mesa on the periphery of Nampula. The primary Good Shepherd focus is always on women and children, particularly those marginalized, in poor health, abject poverty and vulnerable to trafficking.

Since 2020, the sisters have been engaged in limited ministry there because of COVID-19, but at the end of 2020 they joined efforts assisting refugees in camps on the outskirts of Nampula town. They began by distributing water, food and medicine. Many family members were traumatized from witnessing parents, siblings and relatives raped, tortured or killed and disappeared.

A woman in Mozambique collects water for washing as floodwaters begin to recede in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth in 2019. The cyclone’s challenges added to the instability of the country beset with Islamist militants. (CNS/Reuters/Mike Hutchings)

The sisters, who were not trained, referred people to international NGOs and government ministries. As the crisis grew, the U.N. named it a “Children’s Crisis” because so many children in the camps had no idea where their parents or family members were.

After months of struggling, and overwhelmed as the numbers of refugees and displaced people increased daily, the sisters organized a team of lay mission partners to work with them. With funds from the Good Shepherd International Foundation in Rome, they purchased medicine, water and food, as well as local materials to build temporary shelters and replace roofs on houses. They also set about monitoring the most vulnerable, settled families — those who have been in the camps for many months. They organized home visits and education in hygiene, health and agriculture, giving the residents seeds and gardening implements to improve their diets and nutrition. Fifty-three percent of the people suffer from malnutrition, compared with the national average of 43%, and the illiteracy rate of those arriving is about 67%. This rate confirms that most are from rural areas, where educational opportunities are still minimal, as I witnessed in 2008.

The sisters lament that, even with aid coming into the area, there is not enough drinking water, food or sanitary facilities. Without access to medicines, diseases spread quickly, including cholera and COVID-19. HIV/AIDS is a persistent problem, its management made difficult because of food insecurity. Antiviral medicines do not work without proper nutrition. I remember the rising incidence of HIV in that 2008 visit, and now these same problems are plaguing the people again. As people are forced to move about, the disease will only flourish.

Sisters are also concerned about trafficking, which finds fertile ground in the camps. People struggle to survive and listen to false promises of jobs to provide income for their families. The sisters are working hard to find ways to keep this pandemic under control by staying in contact with families who are vulnerable. There seems to be no end in sight for this terrible situation. How does the country get others to help as hope lags?

[Sister Joyce Meyer is a member of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is on the boards of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Medicines for Humanity and the International Foundation of the Good Shepherd Sisters and has served as international liaison to women religious for Global Sisters Report since January 2014.]

Planting and Growing Seeds of Peace

Sisters Kay O’Neil and Michelle Meyers had the distinction of receiving the first annual Artisan of Peace Recognition by the South Dakota Pax Christi Chapters, via Zoom, on Saturday, February 27, 2021.  Present were members from Sioux Falls, Watertown, Brookings and Aberdeen.”

The expression, ‘artisan of peace’, originates with Pope Francis in an address he gave on September 21, 2016, at the World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, when he said, “…believers, regardless of their faith are called to be ‘artisans of peace.’” He went on to describe the word for peace a ‘challenging art of communion.’ In his most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, 231, he continues to describe peace in terms of ‘art’. He writes, “there is an ‘art’ of peace that involves us all…we cannot ignore the involvement of ordinary people.”

Father John Dear spoke to the Aberdeen Presentation Sisters around 1998. In conversation Father Dear challenged Sisters Michelle and Kay to start Pax Christi in South Dakota.  They organized the annual Growing Peace Conference which drew national speakers.  These well-known peace activists included Bishop Tom Gumbleton, Father John Dear, Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Martha Hennessy (grand-daughter of Dorothy Day) and Kathy Kelly. The Presentation Sisters later collaborated on the sponsorship of these conferences with the Benedictine Sisters of Watertown, SD.

Johnny Zokovitch, the Executive Director of Pax Christi USA, has known Sisters Kay and Michelle for the past 30 years, so it was with much joy that he was able to share his admiration for all they have done. He said, “the art of peace requires skill, practice and perseverance. Peace building is not easy. Sisters Kay and Michelle are living examples of what it takes to be peacebuilders. They are truly ‘artisans of peace.’”

Through all they have done in the name of promoting peace and justice in our world, it is clear that not only did Sisters Kay and Michelle plant seeds of peace, but peace grew beyond anyone’s imagination. 

“May the Peace, love, hope and joy
of our non-violent Jesus be with
each of you. No exceptions.”

Sister Kay O’Neil

Cultivating Hope as ONE

As we begin this season of Lent, our desire for peace based on being in right relationship with God, ourselves, our neighbors and all creation, is the gift that Jesus brings. Pope Francis reminds us of this gift in his 2015 Encyclical, Laudato Si’, Care of our Common Home. In this Encyclical, Pope Francis states:

Disregard for the duty to cultivate and maintain a proper relationship with my neighbor, for whose care and custody I am responsible, ruins my relationship with my own self, with others, with God and with the earth. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ 70 (LS 70)

In a world that is hurt and wounded, we invite you to join us in prayer and reflection, becoming more attentive to the type of life we are living. Below are reflections as well as a calendar that provides simple ways we may turn our focus to the care of these relationships, offering hope to ourselves and each other.

Our work for justice, both locally and globally, continues. We invite you to partner with us, helping our sisters and brothers in Christ. Together, we bring hope to those who need it most.

We encourage you to send us your prayer intentions. We remember each of you in daily prayer. United as ONE, we pray for justice, peace and hope throughout our world as we walk with Jesus through his life, death and resurrection.