What's Happening

January 17, 2025, Southfield, Michigan – Three Adrian Dominican Sisters participated last month in a meeting of the Gamaliel Nuns’ Caucus, a coalition of religious Catholic Sisters and lay community organizers working together to bring about “transformative justice” in society. 

Sisters Cheryl Liske, OP, Xiomara Méndez-Hernandez, OP, and Janice Brown, OP, participated in the afternoon session of the Nuns’ Caucus, held at the end of the Fifth Biennial Race and Power Summit. The summit drew affiliates and leaders of the Gamaliel Network, along with invited allies and partners, to the three-day event. The theme was “A Pivotal Moment in Time: Resistance, Persistence, Insistence.”

Founded in 1989, the Gamaliel Network trains community and faith leaders “in building political power and creating organizations that unite people of diverse faiths and races” in work for justice. The network is made up of 44 affiliates and state offices in seven states. 

Participating in the Nuns’ Caucus meeting were sisters and organizers who attended the Race and Power Summit and others who participated via Zoom.

Sister Theresa Keller, FSPA, of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, opened the meeting by explaining that the Nuns’ Caucus began about two years ago with a letter of intent. In their work for justice, the Sisters intersect with community organizers represented by Gamaliel. This intersection led to the proposal for a more formal network of sisters and community organizers within Gamaliel.  

“Historically, many Catholic religious sisters came to this country to serve the many immigrant communities,” said Sister Cheryl, a community organizer who served Gamaliel as National Training Director and a senior trainer. “They supported the common good by building social infrastructure,” such as hospitals, schools, and universities. 

In spite of the good that Catholic sisters brought to the United States, Sister Cheryl admitted that in many places, sisters were “complicit in racism and segregation. We lament in regard to such things as not being significant voices,” she said.

Sister Cheryl pointed to NETWORK, a social justice lobby formed by Catholic sisters about 50 years ago to serve as a voice for people suffering from poverty or other forms of injustice. “We renew our efforts to support the common good,” she said. “Today’s sisters, rooted in the Gospel and ancient practices, persist with our call for transformative justice inside and outside the Church structures.”

Sister Xiomara, a native of the Dominican Republic and Executive Director of the Dominican Sisters Conference, related her own experience of racism when she came to the United States to enter the Adrian Dominican Congregation. She expected the people of the United States to be good people because of her experience with the Adrian Dominican Sisters who ministered in her country. 

“I was privileged in my country because I was a light color,” she said, but she experienced the biases of some people in the United States. “I was feeling less and less and didn’t know why.” She learned that she was experiencing racism. 

Sister Xiomara educated herself on the biases in the United States and became involved in the Congregation’s efforts to root out racist attitudes. In its Toward Communion Circle created to work towards the Congregation’s 2016 Enactment on Racism and Diversity, “we wanted to undo racism among us to raise diversity,” she said. “We wrestled a lot, and some of the stories were painful.”

Sister Xiomara cited the efforts of the Revolutionary Love Project with its three practices: See no stranger; love others, but first tend to your own wounds and fears; and adapt the practice of a midwife: push for new life. The project was founded by Valarie Kaur, a civil rights leader, lawyer, educator, activist, and author.

“I refuse to see myself as a victim,” Sister Xiomara said. “I want to see all of us as a beautiful creation of God. I want to see myself as more than a survivor but a thriver.”

Sister Janice spoke of prayer as a basis for religious life. “Prayer is where we find our ground, where I open myself to a greater world,” she said. Contemplation “is a time to step aside and be with God. You stop and contemplate and just let that sink in … bringing you to a higher level of consciousness.”

Study is also an important part of the Dominican tradition and the tradition of other congregations as well, Sister Janice said. It involves understanding the world and discerning where God is and what God plans for us. 

Prayer and study bring us to spiritual activism, “the act of transforming oneself,” Sister Janice said. “Prayer is a breath of life that holds us as a community and as a unique child of God. It brings us back to the essence of who we are and whose we are.”   

The meeting concluded with a discussion on how participants were sustained by prayer and their mission, and on ways that community organizers and Sisters can work together and learn from one another. 
 

Caption for above feature photo: From left: Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, Sister Xiomara Méndez-Fernandez, OP, and Sister Janice Brown, OP.