“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth.”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth.”
Here are some of the ways our congregation has used our collective voice in the past few years.
Developing Diverse Voices
Our sisters wanted to find a way to support the dear neighbor in telling their own stories and advocating for themselves personally, in their communities and in politics. We believe that we should do all we can to help elevate the voices of our dear neighbors, especially those who come from under-resourced communities. To that end, we developed the Developing Diverse Voices curriculum.
Developing Diverse Voices is a free set of workshops for not-for-profit organizations to use to train their clients to tell their own stories. The program has two main goals:
- To help people hone their stories, so they can tell them with conviction and
- To connect clients to service organizations in new ways, including as spokespeople and colleagues.
Women’s Voices
As a congregation, we have sought to lift up the voices of women.
During the Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality, we invited everyone to pray with us a womanly novena, each month for nine months, for a more inclusive church.
Ahead of the synod, Discerning Deacons asked us to affirm a statement published by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and the men’s Union of Superiors General for increasing women’s ability to contribute to the life and mission of the Church. The decision to support this statement and to promote the vocation of women to the ordained ministry was unanimous.
Language Learning
As a part of the Immigrant Home English Learning Program (IHELP), many of our sisters help provide at-home English tutoring for immigrant adults and children. Volunteering with the Immigrant Home English Learning Program, our sisters help equip immigrant families to function with increased confidence and independence, handle emergency and medical situations, gain financial literacy, and other practical living skills.
Our sisters have also started a language learning program teaching English to Sisters of St. Basil the Great via Zoom.
An Ongoing Effort
As a congregation, we have sought to use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth. The above list of actions does not catalogue every effort we have made, and there is much deeper and farther to go as we accompany others in speaking their truth. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.