Carole Garibaldi Rogers is an oral historian and a poet. She is also author of Habits of Change: An Oral History of American Nuns (Oxford University Press, 2011). She recently blogged about the current situation involving the Vatican and U.S. Catholic Sisters drawing on her experience conducting interviews with 94 women religious across the United States and across religious communities beginning in the 1990s. Rogers’ message is clear: Get to know the Catholic sisters and nuns who are “behind the controversy”.

This is a welcome approach to the endless commentary on a situation that we continue to know very little about. Lest we baptize all of our personal opinions (indeed some rather scathing and unconscionable opinions) as undeniable fact, let’s shift the discussion and get to know U.S. Catholic sisters and nuns and see where religious life is in the ecclesial landscape.

Rogers first couple of blog posts introduce us to Sister Rosemarie Milazzo, a Maryknoll Sister, and to Sister Mary Rose McGeady, a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

Reflecting on her work in Tanzania and Congo, Sister Rosemarie tells Rogers:

“That’s the cost of relationships. You’re into their lives. They’re into your life. We enter into the pain of people, and I guess for me it’s become more the pain of the world. It’s so deep. There are so many trouble spots and there are so many people who don’t get a share at the table. I hope my prayers are deeper. I hope my walking on this earth is gentler and more caring and more compassionate. I also feel that I have met the people and they’ve told me their story. So what is now my responsibility?” (read more at the Oxford University Press blog, May 6, 2012)

Sister Mary Rose, who succeeded Father Bruce Ritter as the Director of Covenant House, an agency to protect runaway teens, spoke to Rogers about her work:

“These kids are trying to figure out what they’re going to do with their drunken father who beats them or who sexually abuses them. Or they’re kids forced into prostitution to have money to buy their school books. What a different world it is. What it does, it just whets my appetite for what we do, to try to give these kids the second chance they need to get started over again. People will say to me, ‘How can you do that work all the time? Don’t you begin to feel overwhelmed by all these kids?’ And I always say, ‘The only way we can make a mistake is to stop.’ The only time the church fails is when it stops being a caring community.” (read more at the Oxford University Press blog, May 7, 2012)

Check out more by Rogers and her book Habits of Change at carolegaribaldirogers.net.

To see all the NUNDAY stories of Catholic sisters and nuns we’ve posted, visit the NUNDAY at aNunsLife.org. If you’ve got a photo and story (how you know Sister) of a real Catholic sister or nun, check out the details on submitting your photo for consideration.

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Join us for prayer tonight at 6 p.m.CT at aNunsLife.org/live – we pray together across the world using the Scripture of the day. During the prayer you can offer your prayers using the chat room.

A nun cares for a wounded soldier in this detail from a larger Civil War-era print featuring the field ministry of Holy Cross Father P.P. Cooney. In Civil War battles, at least 300 Daughters of Charity ministered to soldiers on both sides of the war. (CNS photo/courtesy University Archives, The Catholic University of America)

Catholic nuns and sisters are no strangers to the battlefield. In a recent interview with Catholic News Service, Sister Betty Ann McNeil, DC — a Daughter of Charity and archivist of the Emmitsburg, Maryland, province — said that the Daughters of Charity and 11 other religious communities had a unique role in the Civil War.

The sisters provided food, water, bandages and basic medical care. They also gave spiritual solace to soldiers who requested it: praying with them, distributing religious medals, baptizing the dying and writing letters home to soldiers’ families.

At Gettysburg and other Civil War battles, at least 300 Daughters of Charity ministered to soldiers on both sides of the war. In all, more than 600 sisters from 12 religious orders responded to this national crisis by doing everything from bandaging soldiers in the battlefield to coordinating makeshift hospitals. (source: “Story of sisters’ role in Civil War ‘under-told,’ archivist says” by Carol Zimmermann in the Archdiocesan newspaper, The Boston Pilot, 10/07/2011)

Sister Betty Ann said “little is known about the role of these sisters in history because they simply were responding to the needs of the time, not unlike the work these sisters continue today in caring for the sick and helping those in need.” She herself knows quite a bit about the history because of her own work in editing the book Charity Afire about the sisters’ Civil War ministry. She was particularly inspired by Sister Juliana Chatard.

Sister Juliana Chatard [was] a young Daughter of Charity who longed to be in the field of action. Eventually this young woman, who was from the North, was sent to Richmond, Va., and made an administrator of a soldiers’ hospital there….

Describing the 1862 Battle of Richmond, Sister Juliana said fighting during the weeklong battle started each day at 2 a.m. and ended around 10 p.m. with bombs “bursting and reddening the heavens” just yards from the hospital door. She also said the sisters at the hospital were shaken by cannon firings and the “heavy rolling of the ambulances filling the streets bringing in the wounded and dying men. The entire city trembled as if from an earthquake with the exception of few short hours.”

As Sister Betty Ann sees it, Sister Juliana’s ministry was similar to what so many of these sisters were doing during a time of great national turmoil.

“Her charity knew no bounds,” she said. “Her love embraced the Northern soldier who was dying as well as the Southern soldier who was thirsty.”

Read the entire article at The Boston Pilot website.

What other stories have you heard of involving nuns at war? In what ways are Catholic nuns today serving “during a time of great national turmoil”?

Join A Nun’s Life Community for evening prayer and chat at 6 p.m. CST (your time zone) today at aNunsLife.org/live.

Happy Nunday! Hot of the press is a photo and article about Sister Anne Higgins, DC, a Daughter of Charity. Sister Anne is a Catholic sister and a poet! Check out her blog of poetry at Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky. A link to her blog can also be found in our director of Blogs by Catholic Nuns.

Sister Anne was recently featured in The Frederick News-Post in the article Mount teacher’s poetry writing talent is a gift, not a compulsion by Marge Neal (October 04, 2009). Here’s a clip from the article and, of course, a photo of Sister Anne:

The Mount St. Mary’s University teacher leads classes in English, theology and poetry. As a member of the Daughters of Charity, she lives her faith on a daily basis. As a teacher at a Catholic university, she gets to share that faith with her students while getting them excited about the written word, another passion of hers.

“I’ve been writing my whole life,” Higgins said Thursday. “I probably started writing poems in fourth grade, just regular little rhyming poems.”

Sister Anne Higgins, DC; photo by Graham Cullen

Sister Anne’s fourth book of poetry, “How the Hand Behaves,” is set to be published Nov. 8 [Note: Correction to article: publish date = Nov. 30; also, hyperlinks mine]