Afrigather CHICAGO (RNS) — After six years with out hitting the highway for a political advocacy tour, the Nuns on the Bus are again, and this time they’ve introduced mates alongside for the journey.
Organized by Community Foyer for Catholic Social Justice, the cross-country tour kicked off on Sept. 30 in Philadelphia and can finish in San Francisco on Oct. 18 after visiting 20 cities. The bus tour is a follow-up to what had been an annual affair between 2012 and 2018 — aside from 2017 — because the sisters known as for immigration reform, a residing wage, enhancements to well being care and an finish to wealth inequality and polarization.
For the 2024 tour, Community, the foyer based by Catholic sisters in 1971, is citing Pope Francis in calling on Catholics and different “individuals of goodwill” to be multi-issue voters. The message stands in distinction to the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops’ steering that “the specter of abortion” must be Catholic voters’ preeminent precedence.
On Tuesday (Oct. 8), the bus carrying the sisters and their mates pulled up exterior the previous rectory of St. Agnes parish to go to the Circle Useful resource Heart, a ladies’s neighborhood heart in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.
The 2 dozen or so riders, a mixture of Catholic ladies spiritual and representatives of Protestant and secular teams, toured the middle earlier than holding a information convention by the entrance stair.
Sister Sally Duffy speaks throughout a Nuns on the Bus occasion on the Circle Useful resource Heart in Chicago, Oct. 8, 2024. (RNS photograph/Bob Smietana)
Sister Sally Duffy, a member of the Sisters of Charity from Cincinnati, launched into the group’s mantra, which was repeated by audio system and riders over the subsequent half hour or so.
“All people thrives,” she mentioned, adopted by the riders answering, “no exceptions.”
The thought of the go to — and the bus tour — was to get previous partisan speaking factors and deal with the values many Individuals share and on options that profit everybody.
“It’s so essential to us as a result of it’s the gospel message,” mentioned the 75-year-old Duffy in an interview.
Sister Alicia Gutierrez, government director of the Circle Useful resource Heart, mentioned the previous rectory, as soon as in sick restore, had been reworked into a spot the place individuals can belong. Lots of the ladies who attend applications on the Circle are immigrants, looking for a spot to belong as they discover their method in a brand new nation.
“We needed to have a spot for the ladies who want mates to maintain their hope on this nation alive,” mentioned Gutierrez, a member of the Society of Helpers. She mentioned the middle has change into a spot of affection and neighborhood.
The Nuns on the Bus tour automobile throughout a cease at Circle Useful resource Heart in Chicago, Oct. 8, 2024. (RNS photograph/Bob Smietana)
The Rev. Leslie Copeland Tune, senior affiliate normal secretary of the Nationwide Council of Church buildings and one of many mates accompanying the nuns, mentioned that stops on the tour, just like the one on the heart, have been a form of prayer — connecting advocacy work to the facility of strange individuals’s tales.
Points comparable to immigration or home violence tackle a human face, she mentioned. “It fuels the activism, since you perceive what’s at stake, what’s wanted, and it lets you inform their tales,” she mentioned.
Tune helped facilitate a city corridor assembly held Tuesday night time within the basement of Outdated St. Patrick’s Church on the west finish of Chicago’s Loop.
About 150 individuals, together with a number of dozen ladies spiritual from Chicago and past, gathered for a gathering that was half get-out-the-vote rally, half deep coverage dive and half Sunday college lesson — with the sisters and their mates urging the viewers to place their religion in motion once they vote. Though Illinois shouldn’t be a swing state, Community hopes to develop its presence there.
The sisters led the viewers by way of what Community calls the “Equally Sacred Guidelines”— a group of six freedoms that join religion to voting points. These freedoms embody the liberty to be wholesome, to take part in a vibrant democracy, to be protected from hurt, to take care of “ourselves and our households.”
Audio system urged attendees to not be distracted by misinformation or partisan feuds however to as an alternative vote for politicians who would assist convey these freedoms to life. Although described as a nonpartisan occasion, it was clear the place a lot of the audio system stood on the presidential election and different nationwide races.
Individuals attend a Nuns on the Bus tour occasion at Outdated St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, Oct. 8, 2024. (RNS photograph/Bob Smietana)
“I can’t let you know who to vote for,” mentioned Sarah Christopherson, a former congressional staffer and tax justice advocate. “However what I’m allowed to let you know is what members of Congress did.”
What Republican members of Congress did, mentioned Christopherson, was permit a short lived expanded baby tax credit score to run out in 2021. Whereas in place, that credit score had been a key device in combating childhood poverty, added Christopherson.
Sister Catherine Darcy of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, who advised RNS her worries about Christian nationalism prompted her to hitch the bus tour, warned the viewers of the risks of the ideology, which she mentioned claims “America” belongs to Christian males, and particularly rich Christians — to not all Individuals.
“Christian nationalism is pitting strange Individuals towards each other,” mentioned Darcy. “And it’s also manipulating individuals of religion huge time.”
Duffy, who, like Darcy, works on immigration points, took on misinformation unfold about Haitian immigrants in her house state of Ohio. Saying Haitian immigrants had helped revitalize the town of Springfield, Ohio, and had been making an attempt to construct a greater life for themselves, she rebuked politicians who unfold false rumors about immigrants consuming pets.
Individuals signal the Nuns on the Bus tour automobile throughout a cease at Outdated St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, Oct. 8, 2024. (RNS photograph/Bob Smietana)
These rumors had been meant as a distraction — and aimed toward turning Individuals towards each other and towards immigrants, she mentioned, including, “Individuals are making an attempt to make us hate them.”
The sister was having none of it.
“Hate by no means made this nation nice,” she mentioned. “What makes our nation nice is love and compassion, and we will vote that in November.”
This Nuns on the Bus tour is the primary with out Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who led Community for practically 17 years as government director. Campbell, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, launched the primary bus tour in 2012 to oppose funds cuts proposed by Republican Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
However this yr with out Campbell, the sisters are being joined by ecumenical and secular companions, together with representatives of the Mates Committee on Nationwide Laws, Gamaliel, Coalition on Human Wants, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Freedom Street, Sojourners, Religion in Motion, the Nationwide Council of the Church buildings of Christ within the USA and the Youngsters’s Protection Fund.
The inclusion of companions on the tour mirrors a broader development within the life of girls spiritual within the U.S. As communities of sisters are getting old and gaining fewer new members, they’re more and more partnering with laypeople to proceed their ministries. After Campbell’s retirement, Community is at the moment led by Mary Novak, the primary layperson to function government director.
Sister Cecelia Cavanaugh, left, and her former pupil Liz Ryan meet up throughout a Nuns on the Bus tour cease at Outdated St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, Oct. 8, 2024. (RNS photograph/Bob Smietana)
Amongst these within the viewers Tuesday night time had been Sister Cecelia Cavanaugh, a former faculty professor and Catholic college trainer from Philadelphia, and Liz Ryan, one in every of her former college students.
Cavanaugh, who took half in a 2020 digital Nuns on the Bus tour (a collection of Zoom conferences across the nation), had come to Chicago, now Ryan’s house, for a reunion with different former riders.
Ryan mentioned the occasion had given her a way of hope.
One takeaway was that “we will all be sort, we will all reside in a world the place all of us can thrive, no exceptions,” she mentioned. “I consider that, and I’ve all the time believed that. However to be right here and part of this, it reaffirms your religion and your perception in humanity.”
These had been classes — together with studying easy methods to diagram sentences — Ryan mentioned she realized from Cavanaugh, who taught her in grade college and center college at Resurrection of Our Lord Catholic college in northeast Philadelphia.
Cavanaugh mentioned she was happy to listen to that a few of the classes she taught all these years in the past had caught. She additionally mentioned the sisters had been concerned in each coverage work and on-the floor ministry.
“All these sisters, they’re as much as their hips in good work,” she mentioned. Lots of them had been additionally older and retired, liberating up their time to become involved in activism and what the late Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis known as “good hassle.”
“We’re getting older — but it surely’s liberating,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “Individuals must have extra time to volunteer and get into extra hassle. That’s what we must be doing.”
