Media Type: PDF

In 1971, while engaged in study for her doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Sr. Jeannine Gramick was invited to attend a monthly dance hosted by the campus’s Episcopal church. The associate rector of the church had convinced her to come simply to sell soda and other concessions, but accepting the invitation would place Gramick’s life and ministry on a new trajectory. It was at that dance that Gramick first met Dominic Bash, a gay man.

A few weeks later, the two met again at an interfaith service and Gramick came to learn more about the pain her new acquaintance was carrying. Bash had been raised Catholic. He even entered the Franciscans with the intention of becoming ordained. Yet, he left the order early because he was concerned that being gay would prohibit him from being ordained a priest. In time, Bash became a hairdresser and joined the Episcopal Church.“[He] had been thrown out of the confessional one too many times,” Gramick says.

Learn more about and be inspired by Sister Jeannine Gramick’s advocacy for justice for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and for reconciliation between the church and LGBT Catholics.

Resources Included in This Download:

• Educational resources: A Biography of Sister Jeannine Gramick with guide for discussion and reflection; In Her Own Words (Sister Jeannine Gramick discusses the violence of silence) with guide for discussion and reflection; Finding our way in the troubled church we love: lessons we can learn from the witness of Sr. JeannineGramick, by Bob Shine
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Praying Psalm 139 by New Ways Ministry
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download

National attention was directed to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in 1979 when Sister Theresa Kane, president of the LCWR, addressed Pope John Paul II at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Her words are still pertinent: “We have heard the powerful message of our church addressing the dignity and reverence of all persons . . .  The Church must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries.” As a result of the greeting, a few congregations withdrew from the Conference, but the LCWR became more public and the membership gained new responsibilities. The LCWR president’s message in 1982 called attention to two realities

Learn more about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and their work to renew the Church and world since Vatican II.

Resources Included in This Download:

• Educational resources: A History of the LCWR; In Her Own Words: “Navigating the Shifts” address of Sr. Pat Farrell, OSF at the 2012 LCWR Assembly with discussion guide; Benchmarks for Church Leadership Roles for Women by the LCWR with discussion guide
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Prayer Service for the Church and Women Religious
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download

Elizabeth Ann Johnson, more fondly known by her family and friends as Beth, was born on December 6, 1941 to Walter Johnson and Margaret Reed Johnson. The oldest of seven children, she was known to take charge of the kids in her Brooklyn neighborhood to coordinate softball games, to put on plays, and even, some days, to do a few chores. Beth is remembered to have been a serious child, disciplined from a young age, and a natural leader. Her self-confidence would serve her well through the trials and challenges that were to come as she pursued a life of faith and study.

Educated by the Sisters of St. Joseph at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Johnson was familiar with the life of women religious. Following the example of the energetic, youthful, and dedicated teachers she knew throughout her education, Johnson chose to enter the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood after graduating high school. Putting her remarkable intellect to work, she received a degree in education and went on to teach amongst the same sisters who had first empowered her voice.

Learn more about Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, a theologian, whose efforts to uncover an inclusive language for God have a profound impact not only one’s personal relationship with God but on the way the Church, society, and community act in the world.

Resources Included in This Download:

• Educational resources: A Biography of Sister Elizabeth Johnson; In Her Own Words (Elizabeth Johnson’s Acceptance Speech for the 2014 Outstanding Leaderhip Award from the LCWR ); The Symbol of God Functions: God Language, Catholic Social Teaching, and Community; In Good Company: Other Feminist Theologians writing and working today
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Prayer Service for New Life written by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download

Sr. Karen Klimczak:

“Dear Brother, I don’t know what the circumstances are that will lead you to hurt me or destroy my physical body. No, I don’t want it to happen. I would much rather enjoy the beauties of this earth, experience the laughter, the fears and the tears of those I love so deeply!… Now my life is changed and you, my brother, were the instrument of that change. I forgive you for what you have done and I will always watch over you, help you in whatever way I can….”

Sr. Jean Klimczak read from a letter she found while going through her slain sister Karen’s journal at the sentencing of the man who strangled Karen to death. Sister Karen Klimczak, a Sister of St. Joseph, had written the letter just before Holy Week in 1991 — fifteen years before she was killed on Good Friday 2006 by the man who was living in the transitional home for former inmates she had founded. Sister Karen wrote the letter after having a premonition that her life would be violently taken from her.

More than a truly moving letter to her killer, it serves as a testament to how Sister Karen lived her life and the kind of life she inspired so many others to live.

Learn more about and celebrate Sister Karen Klimczak, witness of peace and nonviolence:

Resources Included:

• Educational resources: A profile of Sister Karen and her ministry with ex-offenders and advocacy for peace  with questions for reflection and discussion; In Her Own Words: Sister Karen’s letter of forgiveness to her killer– written 15 years before her death– with questions for reflection and dialogue; recent Catholic statements on gun violence in the U.S.
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Prayer Service for choosing to leave “PeacePrints”
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download

Sr. Norma Pimentel. Since an initial surge in the summer of 2014, tens thousands of immigrants – many of them unaccompanied minors and young women with children – have crossed into the United States border at Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. The majority are from Central America, particularly Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Fleeing horrific gang violence, trying to rejoin family members, and looking for a way to make a living, they immediately surrender themselves to U.S. Border Patrol in the hope that the legal system will allow them to stay.

After detaining these women and children for hours and even days, Border Patrol releases hundreds of immigrant families a day with bus tickets and a ‘notice to appear’ at an immigration hearing. Tired, hungry, dirty, and distraught many of these women and families seek respite at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in downtown McAllen, Texas, where they meet Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. A sister with the Missionaries of Jesus, Sister Norma knew there was more that could be done. “They were just being dropped off at the bus station in heartbreaking conditions,” she said.

And so, in early June 2014 Sister Norma requested permission to set up a way station for immigrant families to receive the physical, spiritual, and emotional care they so desperately needed at Sacred Heart Church – just a a few blocks away from the bus station in McAllen. And just a few days later, she opened an additional facility at Brownsville’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral – just a block away from the bus station there.

Learn more about and celebrate Norma Pimentel, a sister who works on the border to welcome those seeking refuge.

Resources Included:

• Educational resources: A profile of Norma Pimentel and her work with questions for reflection and discussion; In Her Own Words: Sister Norma’s testimony before the United States Commission on Civil Rights with questions for reflection and dialogue; A Summary of “Strangers No Longer Together on the Journey of Hope” a pastoral letter by the bishops of Mexico and the United States with questions for reflection and dialogue.
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Prayer Service For welcoming the stranger among us
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download

On May Day 1933 Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker movement and newspaper in New York City. Since then Day’s life of voluntary poverty, direct action on behalf of the worker and the poor and absolute nonviolence and pacifism has been a constant inspiration for both Christians and non-Christians. Without dismissing the importance of other leaders in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, it is fair to say that Dorothy Day remains, at the dawn of the new millennium, the radical conscience of American Catholicism.

Popular interest in Dorothy Day has grown since her death in 1980. Such interest only increased when the Vatican announced on March 17, 2000, that it had approved starting the process for Day’s canonization as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Scholars, too, have taken an interest in Dorothy Day. In addition to her own writings (eight books and several hundred articles), there are numerous critical studies of her life and of the Catholic Worker movement. (See references) These studies all point to a conspicuous entwined thread in the tapestry of Day’s life, the unique combination of social activism and deep religious feeling. The dual passion of social justice and intimacy with God was present in Day’s life from her early years.

Download our resource packet to learn more. Resources include:

• Educational resources: A Biography of Dorothy Day by Stephen Krupa, SJ with questions for reflection and discussion; In Her Own Words: The Scandal of the Works of Mercy by Dorothy Day with discussion guide; Excerpts from Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching on The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers with Discussion Guide
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Prayer Service Honoring Dorothy Day by Christine Schenk, CSJ
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

Download