What's Happening

October 12, 2022, Adrian, Michigan – Sister Elise D. García, OP, now Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, reflects in an article in The National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report on her three years of service in the presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

The LCWR is an association of about 1,350 elected leaders representing about 80% of the women religious in the United States. As General Councilor for the Adrian Dominican Sisters from 2016 to 2022, Sister Elise also was a member of the LCWR. She was elected as President-elect during the LCWR’s 2019 assembly and formally became President during the 2020 Assembly and Past-President during the 2021 Assembly.

In her retrospective, Sister Elise looks back on the “hinge years” of the early 2020s that saw such calamities as the COVID-19 pandemic; the police murder of George Floyd and the accompanying focus on racism and white supremacy in the United States; the insurrection at the nation’s Capital in January 2021; global “climate chaos” that included floods, droughts, and forest fires; and Russia’s war against Ukraine. She also details the LCWR’s responses to these crises.

“We are in a make-or-break decade of preventing catastrophic global warming for generations to come,” Sister Elise writes. “We face the urgent task of dismantling threats to democracy and the evil of white supremacy that are intertwined in such deadly combustion. … All call for a movement toward right relationship with one another and our Earth community – for loving one another and our Earth home as God loves us.”

Read Sister Elise’s full retrospective.

Feature photo: Sister Elise D. García, OP, delivers her presidential address for the 2021 Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) Assembly in August 2021. Her address was recorded in July for the August 2021 virtual assembly.

May 16, 2022, Adrian, Michigan – Women religious (Catholic Sisters) have tended to be at the forefront of recognizing and appreciating differences among people in the world: they have striven to become anti-racist, to welcome the immigrant and the exiled, and to care for all creatures who share our common home, Earth.

Sister Laurie Brink, OP, PhD

Sister Laurie Brink, OP, a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, takes Sisters to the next level in her presentation, The Differences Among Us: Seeking Unity in Diversity, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 7, 2022, at Weber Retreat and Conference Center. She reflects on the need for women religious to recognize and respect the generational, ecclesial, racial, and cultural differences among members of their own congregations.

Sister Laurie, a Professor of New Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, is the author of several books and an Associate Editor of The Bible Today. 

The Differences Among Us is offered both in-person at Weber Retreat and Conference Center and via live stream. In-person guests will be screened for COVID-19 and required to wear masks. There is no cost, but donations are appreciated. Registration is required and is available at www.webercenter.org; click on “programs.” Registrations may also be made by calling 517-266-4000 or emailing webercenter@adriandominicans.org. 

Weber Center is located on the campus of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse, Adrian, 1257 E. Siena Heights Drive, Adrian. For information, call the Weber Center at 517-266-4000.