Rhina Guidos

"What do you do in the face of all these viruses, worse than COVID-19, that suffocate and threaten the human condition and that of the Afro-descendant people and other people?" asked Sr. María Suyapa Cacho Álvarez.

A group of pilgrims with the Ecclesial Conference on the Amazon and Discerning Deacons took part in programs and church visits in Rome at the start of the synod discussing the spiritual call many women have to be deacons in the church.

A group of men and women gathered at a chapel near the Vatican, confidently praying that the church would restore the female diaconate Oct. 3, the day after synod participants were told it would not happen now.

Rev. Angela Nevitt Meyer of Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA joined other advocates for women's ordination in Rome, where they prayed near the site of synod on synodality.

The Nicaraguan government stripped the legal status of 26 Catholic congregations, the majority of them communities of women religious, whose ministries provided food and services for the elderly and poor.

Auxiliary Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera of Cuzco, Peru, spoke with National Catholic Reporter July 8-9 as he prepared to meet with United Nations officials in New York about the dire situation facing much of Latin America.

"This truth is ugly and painful," said Linda Gray, whose ancestors were among those who became part of Epiphany Parish, which Black Catholics founded after they left Holy Trinity in the 1920s because of the racism there. 

In a June 4-7 visit to the nation's capital that also included a stop in New York, the lawyers shared stories of innocent individuals, communities as well as U.S. citizens who were visiting El Salvador and were detained under the government's "state of exception." 

Santos Alfaro Ayala was wrongfully imprisoned for almost three months under El Salvador's "state of exception," which has suspended due process rights for the government's fight against armed gangs. Alfaro and his community are rejoicing at his release.

The bishop leading the U.S. Catholic Church's response on migration issues said that both major political parties are participating in anti-immigrant sentiment in the country. 

Miguel Flores was among 222 Nicaraguans forcibly removed from the country in 2023 and brought to the U.S. A year later, with support from parishioners at Washington's Holy Trinity Catholic Church, he is talking more about the experience.

El Salvador's president, who has waged a war against criminal gangs that has imprisoned more than 70,000 people, has won a second term. Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez spoke of St. Oscar Romero interceding for the country.

Following record-breaking crossings of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, sisters and church leaders call for Christian empathy for those fleeing their homes all over the world. 

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.

Latin American Catholic leaders and groups are lining up to support a Guatemalan cardinal rumored to be a target for arrest after voicing fears that a coup may prevent Guatemala's president-elect from being sworn in. 

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."

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

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."