What's Happening

July 28, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – The Leadership Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued a statement today calling on the president and members of Congress to use funding policy influence to enable safe and effective humanitarian aid in Gaza. Below is the statement.

Statement of the Adrian Dominican Sisters 

As women of faith who pray to the same God as all our Abrahamic kin in the Middle East, we cry out in horror at the sight of starvation sweeping across Gaza. 

One in five Palestinians now face starvation, including thousands of children – infants and toddlers. The little ones Jesus called unto himself are now among those suffering the most, ravaged by the effects of malnutrition from weeks of aid blockages earlier this year and now from the unconscionably limited and perilously dangerous food distribution. 

Palestinians are dying from starvation – and from their dire attempts to obtain food. Conditions in Gaza are “catastrophic and rapidly deteriorating,” according to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

We call on President Trump and Members of Congress to exert the massive influence of U.S. funding policy in order to give humanitarian aid distribution to established aid organizations and to call on Israel to allow them unblocked road access and safe passage into Gaza. Food, water, medical supplies and other urgently needed goods must be allowed into Gaza immediately and distributed safely at the great scale needed if the heartless, immoral, and painful starvation is to be brought to an end.

“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. And, please God, let them be fed!

Members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters Leadership Council are Sisters Elise D. García, OP, Prioress, and Peg Albert, OP, Peggy Coyne, OP, Sara Fairbanks, OP, Dusty Farnan, OP, Patricia Leonard, OP, Frances Nadolny, OP, Lorraine Réaume, OP, Corinne Sanders, OP, and Mary Soher, OP.
 

April 21, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – On behalf of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, the Congregation’s General Council issued the following statement in response to the death of Pope Francis.
 
We awakened this Easter Monday to the sorrowful news that our beloved Pope Francis, 88, has died.
 
Irish American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo or acting head, somberly announced: “Dearest brothers and sisters, it is with profound sadness I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”  
 
In his 12-year papacy, Pope Francis made consequential changes to our Church and world for which we will always be grateful. Among these, he called us into a culture of encuentro with one another, into an integral ecology for the common good of God’s people and our Earth home, and into being a Synodal Church – inclusive, listening, and in communion on mission. In powerful word, gesture and deed, he reached out with great compassion to the desperate, destitute and marginalized, cried out for an end to the horror of war and for joyfully embracing migrants in welcome.
 
We hold Pope Francis in prayer as he enters new life in God’s loving embrace. We also pray for our Church and world as we mourn the loss of this loving, impactful global leader – that we may carry forward his historic legacy.
 

Photo credit: "File:Farewell to Pope Francis in the Galeão Air Force Base.jpg" by Tania Rego/ABr is licensed under CC BY 3.0.