They’re compassionate doctors. Inspiring teachers. Committed advocates for justice. Steady guides on the spiritual path.
Catholic sisters in America simply can’t be stereotyped.
And to prove it, the 12th anniversary of Catholic Sisters Week (March 8-14) is celebrating their many ministries and achievements with campaigns and activities that aim to educate, inform and even surprise.
“The sisters don’t toot their horns,” said Susan Oxley, communications and membership manager for the Religious Formation Conference, a Chicago-based organization serving women’s and men’s religious institutes in America and abroad. “They’re too busy doing what they do. And so we’ve got to do that for them.”
Mikaela VanMoorleghem, director of Marketing and Communications for the Notre Dame Sisters in Omaha, Neb., had a flagship Catholic Sisters Week idea that involves 34 congregations nationwide.
“The campaign is called #LikeaCatholicSister,” said VanMoorleghem, a member of Communicators for Women Religious, which is affiliated with the Leadership Conference for Women Religious, or LCWR. “And the purpose is to get different congregations from across the country in a unified effort to challenge these outdated stereotypes of what a Catholic sister is — and shift perceptions of religious life by showcasing the diverse and dynamic and impactful ways that the sisters actually serve today.”
VanMoorleghem hopes the storytelling and reflection of the #LikeaCatholicSister social media campaign — social media hashtags help users find specific content — will demonstrate the many ways women religious have always defied expectations.
“We know that for generations — this isn’t just happening today — Catholic sisters have been breaking barriers and advocating for justice and leading in education,” she said. “We know that a lot of these different congregations and sisters have been a source of strength and hope and transformation.”
She also encouraged participating congregations to share historical references — sisters of one congregation were imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II — as well as contemporary stories, “so people understand that this has been their lives and their life’s work.”
Dominican Sister Beth Murphy, director of communications for the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Illinois, said her congregation’s contribution to #LikeaCatholicSister will focus on four sisters who exemplify their charism, each accompanied by an informative tag.
Three short videos will also accompany the sisters’ campaign.
Dominican Sister Sharon Zayac (“Changing the narrative”) helped found the sisters’ eco-spirituality center; Dominican Sister Mila Diaz Solano (“Elevating different voices”) is creating an all-Spanish master’s degree at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union; Dominican Sister M. Alverna Hollis (“Trailblazing new paths”) standardized sign language in Peru and founded the first-ever high school for the deaf in that country.
Dominican Sister Josephine Meagher (“Pioneering courage”), one of the congregation’s founding sisters, sought naturalization — but it’s not clear if she ever attained it.
“An interesting story,” reflected Sister Murphy, “to be telling at this moment in history!”
The Benedictine Sisters of Benet Hill Monastery in Colorado Springs, Colorado, chose the Catholic Sisters Week theme “Doing Hope and Letting Love Flow,” encouraging friends and family to honor a Catholic sister by taking a personal “Lenten Pilgrimage of Hope with the People of the Amazon.”
A Lenten guidebook will accompany their campaign.
“Our goals,” said Ruth Roland, director of mission advancement at Benet Hill, “are to raise awareness about the environmental crisis in Peru along the Amazon for people living there; build community between our monastery’s global community and the communities working with Minga Peru, a nonprofit in Peru; raise funds for their immediate needs; and sign up folks for a real pilgrimage to the Amazon in November 2025.”
The sisters’ neighbor, Barbara Faulkenberry, originally connected the monastery with Minga Peru, and will lead the 2025 pilgrimage. Faulkenberry, a retired Air Force major general, shared that, while she’s not Catholic, she stopped in one day at Benet Hill and “found the love of Christ that just permeated the place.”
“The guide book itself is for Lent — and so there’s phrases from our sisters; from the Bible; from wonderful people — all women’s voices that are just speaking to us,” Faulkenberry told OSV News.
“And we reflect on those words over Lent, and then beyond. So our journey, our pilgrimage, does not stop at the end of Lent,” she said.
The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Ky., said Kathy Williams, director of communications and public relations, decided to combine the celebration of Catholic Sisters Week with both the 2025 Jubilee Year declared by Pope Francis, as well as the 500th anniversary of the journey of their founder, St. Angela Merici, to Rome.
The interactive map they created — “Walk with Angela” — allows users to virtually follow in St. Angela’s footsteps through several historic sites, including the Louisville motherhouse and five Italian cities. At each location, visitors can access videos narrated by sisters of the congregation who work with refugees, witness to marginalized people and serve as spiritual directors.
“One of our own Ursulines — Sister Martha Buser — was a well-known expert on St. Angela Merici,” Williams said. “She traveled the world talking about her, and wrote several books about her. So we used a lot of her writings, and the reflection questions that we use are from her writings.”
An animated representation of St. Angela Merici — looking excited and determined, as if she’s off on an adventure — is accompanied by the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee mascot Luce and her animated friends.
“We wanted also to appeal to the kids in school, the teenagers and the middle schoolers,” Williams said. “And that’s when I had the inspiration to create the young St. Angela to attract them.”
Journeys are a consistent feature in the various Catholic Sisters Week offerings — including those for the Felician Sisters of North America, who are in the midst of celebrating their 150th anniversary.
But rather than simply commemorate, the Felicians also want to raise awareness, said Julie Kresge, their chief mission advancement officer.
Shifting their tactic, they are focusing on the life-saving mission of Águilas del Desierto — Eagles of the Desert — an organization that rescues people in distress crossing the deserts along the U.S.-Mexico border, or brings closure by locating the body of a loved one.
The International Organization for Migration documented 686 deaths and disappearances of people migrating through the US-Mexico border in 2022, making it the deadliest land route for migrants worldwide on record.
Felician Sister Maria Louise Edwards, who has dedicated her ministry to working with migrant families, “is based there, and she helps Águilas with anything that they need,” said Kresge. “That’s her passion in life.”
Interactive educational displays will be sent to Felician convents across North America, allowing residents and the community to walk in solidarity with migrants.
As they view the exhibit, participants are invited to don a backpack containing water, a map and a first-aid kit.
“And they’ll receive a reflection card,” Kresge said. “‘How did that make you feel?’ Just process that. And if they want to write a note or a reflection, we have names of folks that they can pray for at the end as well.”
Whichever journey is taken — virtual, interactive, or overseas — the mission of Catholic Sisters Week is, ultimately, to inspire others.
“The purpose of Catholic Sister Week,” Sister Murphy said, “is to present to women some role models in which they can hopefully see possibilities for their own lives.”
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