The first National Catholic Sisters Week will take place March 8-14, funded by a grant from the Agoura Hills-based Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
The inaugural event will kick off March 8 with a “SisterStories” storytelling program hosted by award-winning journalist and CEO Soledad O’Brien at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn.
National Catholic Sisters Week is part of a larger Sister Story program initiative, supported by a three-year, $3.3 million grant the Hilton Foundation awarded to St. Catherine University in late 2013. Through the course of the program, more than 100 college women across the U.S. will be paired with sisters for one-on-one interviews to capture their oral histories via video, photos and blog posts.
A centerpiece of the SisterStory program will be a social and digital media hub, https://www2.stkate.edu/ncsw/home, which will house the oral histories, along with web-based curriculum modules for middle school, high school and college women.
All are invited to participate in National Catholic Sisters Week through local community events and outreach, volunteer opportunities and social media. National Catholic Sisters Week will also feature community-submitted content on its Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest channels.
Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez has made the promotion of vocations to the priesthood and religious and consecrated life one of his five pastoral priorities. “Our Church always needs more men and women who can testify to the radical beauty of a life given totally to Jesus Christ,” he wrote in his 2012 pastoral letter, “Witness to the New World of Faith.”
