In April, the Leadership Conference for Women Religious (LCWR) invited members from every member congregation to attend a conference bringing one leadership person, one justice promoter, and one communicator. There, attendees were asked to work together from their different perspectives to consider the LCWR Call to Action and to create a plan to bring back to their congregations.  LCWR’s Call to Action 2023-2028, a five-year period, begins, “We, the members of LCWR are living the gospel call at a critical juncture in human history. Aware that the world’s future depends upon the decisions that are made in the next few years, we embrace our responsibility to make choices that support the good of all life on this planet.  We also recognize that the state of US religious life is shifting and that significant decisions are before each of us that will impact the development of this vocational call.”

It goes on to state, “Reading the signs of the times and our desire to create communion, we the LCWR, reaffirm our commitment to address the interrelatedness of the concerns expressed ….  We are heartbroken by the myriad ways our one human family and Earth continue to suffer from disconnection, indifference, violence, and fear in the face of racism, forced migration, and climate crisis.”

For more than 150 years, women religious congregations, have continuously evolved in the service they have provided to the world.  Congregations were started to fill direct needs.  People were sick, hospitals were opened, etc.  Then it became clear that direct service could only do so much under broken systems, so work began to deal with broken systems.  This was followed by the realization that systems couldn’t be fixed without policy changes, and so congregations went into political advocacy. Now, we see that political advocacy isn’t enough because people are divided, broken, and hurt. We are now in a place where we need a transformation of consciousness, and who better to lead the nation into this action than women religious.

Call:
Given the uncertainty, urgency, and crises of our time, we intend to respond to the needs of our world with a deeper and wider Franciscan lens.  Through transforming our consciousness, both individually and collectively, we hope to implement change that creates collective transformation through a ripple effect of peace and harmony displayed in our prophetic actions and words.

Commitment:

• Create communion at the intersection of racism, immigration, violence, and climate crisis. Integrate the work of justice into every aspect of our lives, using our collective voice to effect systemic change.
• Engage in practices and processes that foster a needed evolution of consciousness through an expression of the truth of the Gospel and our Franciscan charism of relationship, diversity, and inclusion.
• Use contemplative methods of deep listening and dialog by enfleshing what is already in our hearts.
• Dwell in the possibilities of hope for all humanity and creation through continually discerning the direction of the Holy Spirit.
• Broaden our collaboration and networking for this common goal.

Learn more here.

Anti-polarization Campaign

The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly. Two decades later, in 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire.

2024 Theme: Cultivating a Culture of Peace

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.

In that declaration, the United Nations’ most inclusive body recognized that peace “not only is the absence of conflict, but also requires a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Learn more

Other Peace Day Resources
Campaign Nonviolence
Do One Thing for Peace Day
Pax Christi USA
Weekly Peace Prayer from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace
World Peace Prayer Society

In order to take action on peacemaking and to end torture, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia are supporting members of NRCAT.  The mission of NRCAT is to mobilize people of faith to end torture in U.S. policy, practice, and culture.

Goals

• Ensure that U.S.-sponsored torture of detainees never happens again.
• End the use of torture in U.S. prisons and detention facilities, in particular the use of prolonged solitary confinement.
• Promote U.S. policies that enable other countries to end their torture practices and advocate for an end of U.S. support (direct or indirect) of any country that engages in torture.
• End the bigotry and hatred that promotes the practice and acceptance of torture against religiously, ethnically, and other targeted groups.

Recognizing that prolonged solitary confinement can cause serious harm to prisoners, it has long been considered a form of torture. As a persons of faith, the Sisters of St. Francis oppose the use of prolonged solitary confinement.

Experts estimate that tens of thousands of prisoners in the U.S. criminal justice system are currently being held in solitary confinement. The vast majority of these inmates are detained in state prison facilities. Prisoners held in solitary confinement are often detained in a cell by themselves for 23 hours a day. Some prisoners are kept in these conditions for months, years, or even decades. Medical experts have stated that prisoners held in isolation for extended periods experience symptoms akin to delirium and the impact on mentally ill prisoners is especially damaging. Alarmingly these prisoners are sometimes released from solitary confinement units directly to their communities when they complete their prison sentence.

We need to invest in humane alternatives that address the mental health needs of prisoners in a way that effectively contributes both to their rehabilitation and to their successful transition back into society. Because holding prisoners in solitary confinement units is significantly more expensive than keeping them in the general prison population, instituting humane alternatives makes sense both financially and morally.

We must end the use of prolonged solitary confinement in all 50 states and the federal prison system. It is costly, inhumane, and ineffective. It harms prisoners and our communities. The Sisters of St. Francis call upon state legislators and departments of corrections to begin now to take steps to end prolonged solitary confinement.

Hebrews 13:3 states “Remember those in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.”