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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

September 22, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – On behalf of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, the Leadership Council issued the following statement on the occasion of the International Day of Peace.

We invite all people of goodwill to join us this International Day of Peace in calling on President Trump and our elected leaders in Congress to exert the formidable influence of the United States in helping to bring peace and stability to our troubled world.

Our hearts ache for our suffering kin in the Holy Land. More than 60,000 Palestinians, including 18,000 children, have been killed since the start of the brutal Israeli war in Gaza. The war is a response to the horrific Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, including 30 children. Today, Hamas still holds 48 men and women in cruel hostage – and last week Israeli forces launched a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza City, an area with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including children weakened by hunger, acute malnutrition, and disease resulting from unconscionable restrictions on humanitarian aid. Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Matthew 19:14)

In the face of such unutterable human suffering, especially among innocent children, we believe as women of faith that it is a moral imperative to call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the war. We urge President Trump and Members of Congress to exert all the influence the United States has to forge peace through our diplomacy and economic power – bringing about an end to the savage conflict and the return of all hostages.

We also call on President Trump and Members of Congress to impose harsh sanctions on Russia to pressure it into ending its criminal war of aggression against Ukraine, which it continues to escalate with massive drone and missile assaults against civilian targets. Since Russia began its unlawful invasion in February 2022, more than 13,880 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, including at least 726 Ukrainian children. In the lasttwo weeks, Russian aircraft have also provocatively violated Polish and Estonian airspace, with a Russian drone incursion into Poland that Polish and NATO forces scrambled to shoot down.

Please join us in calling on our elected leaders to do all they can to help bring peace to these and other warring places in our world. Let us do all we can to live in peace. And let us work hard to build up one another. (Romans 14:19)

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The theme this year for the UN’s International Day of Peace is “Act Now for a Peaceful World.” It marks 80 years since the United Nations was established in 1945, in the wake of World War II, to maintain global peace and security and promote international cooperation. This year the World Economic Forum cites state-based armed conflict as the top risk in its 2025 Global Risks Report. Observing this year’s theme, UN Secretary General António Guterres stated that “peace doesn’t happen by accident. It is forged.” He said: "Peace is the most powerful force for a better future – and it is within our grasp if we choose it.”

The Leadership Council is comprised of 11 Sisters, including Elise D. García, OP, Prioress; Peg Albert, OP, Chapter Prioress; Peggy Coyne, OP, Chapter Prioress; Sara Fairbanks, OP, Mission Prioress; Durstyne Farnan, OP, Mission Prioress; Pat Leonard, OP, Chapter Prioress; Yolanda Manapsal, OP, Chapter Prioress; Frances Nadolny, OP, General Councilor; Lorraine Réaume, OP, General Councilor; Corinne Sanders, OP, General Councilor; and Mary Soher, OP, Mission Prioress.

September 17, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – The feast of St. Phoebe – declared a saint by the early Church before the canonization process was begun – was celebrated on September 10, 2025, in St. Catherine Chapel at the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse. The Liturgy and an afternoon program on St. Phoebe were organized by the Spirits Rising Mission Group of the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

“I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is [also] a minister of the church at Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the holy ones, and help her in whatever way she may need from you, for she has been a benefactor to many and to me as well.” These words, taken from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans (16:1-2), are never proclaimed from the pulpit as part of the Catholic Church’s lectionary, but they are used by many in the Church to uphold Phoebe as a deacon and minister of the early Church.

During the liturgy at St. Catherine Chapel, Associate Kathryn “Katie” Love offered a reflection on Romans 16:1-2 and the Beatitudes. She noted that St. Paul lifted Phoebe “as an example – a woman whose ministry strengthens the body of Christ” through her leadership, service, and care for God’s people.  

Phoebe’s legacy has been carried on by women throughout the course of Church history, Katie said. “Think of the women who opened their homes as house churches in Paul’s time … the women martyrs who gave their lives for Christ … the women religious who have taught, healed, and cared for the poor across centuries … and the mothers and grandmothers who have passed the faith from one generation to the next.”

She encouraged the assembly to remember Phoebe and to “give thanks for the countless women who have carried the Church on their shoulders – in the early days, in history, and right here among us now.”

Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, delegate of the Spirits Rising Mission Group, led Sisters and Associates in an afternoon program that included input on St. Phoebe and opportunities for small- and large-group discussion. The program explored the role of St. Phoebe and its implications for the role of women in the Catholic Church today.

“Phoebe is the only person directly named as a deacon and benefactor” in Scriptures, said Sister Cheryl, an iconographer who created an icon of St. Phoebe and presented it to the Adrian Dominican Sisters on the Feast of St. Phoebe in 2024. The icon is now on display in the gathering space of St. Catherine Chapel. 

“We recognize and honor her as our sister,” she added. “She used her power for the good of others and for the Gospel. Perhaps we could reflect on how we use whatever social power we have to come to the aid of the needy. If we do that, Phoebe will be proud to have us as her successors.”

Sister Cheryl noted the “ongoing discernment” over women’s ordination to the permanent diaconate, a role distinct from that of the priest. One of the primary documents of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, describes the role of the deacon. At the disposal of the bishop, the deacon is called to “serve the whole people of God and take care of the sick and the poor.”

Sister Cheryl contrasted the recent 60 Minutes interview in which Pope Francis stated that the issue of women’s ordination was closed with Paragraph 60 of the summary of the Catholic Church’s three-year Synodal Process, which calls for “full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women” and requests that the “discernment of diaconal ministry for women remains open.”

Understanding the difference between the 60 Minutes interview and paragraph 60 is one step towards continuing the discernment of women deacons, Sister Cheryl said. She also encouraged participants to sign on to the request that the Feast of St. Phoebe be restored to the Roman calendar and that the reference to St. Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2 be restored to the lectionary. 

The celebration of the Feast of St. Phoebe was in response to a request by Discerning Deacons, an organization whose mission is to “engage Catholics in the active discernment of our Church about women and the diaconate and contribute to the renewal of this ministry for our times.”
 

Caption for above feature photo: Participants in the September 10, 2025, presentation on St. Phoebe engage in small-group discussion.