What's Happening

May 19, 2026, Santa Cruz, California – Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, OP, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability for CommonSpirit Health, dedicates her time to ensuring that the departments in all of the system’s 2,200 care sites – including 142 hospitals – are striving to make their departments more environmentally sustainable.

Sister Mary Ellen oversees sustainability program development and implementation across the 24-state healthcare system. Part of her ministry is discovering ways that each care site is working toward sustainability and whether their practices can be successfully duplicated at other sites, so all of the sites “can share the best practices and the challenges,” she said in an interview for the April 2026 issue of Catholic Health World.

Many of the sites have found creative ways to make their work sustainable in large and small ways, Sister Mary Ellen said. For example, to reduce the use of plastic by hospitals, CommonSpirit worked with a company to develop a “mostly biodegradable version” of the single-use plastic needle counters used during surgery, she said.

Sister Mary Ellen appreciates the enthusiasm of the employees in their sustainability efforts. “Our collective dedication to these duties and responsibilities is driven by a singular purpose: to cultivate a more sustainable and healthier environment for our patients and communities,” she said.

Read the entire article by Valerie Schremp Hahn.

Caption for above feature photo: Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, OP, works in the community garden at Dignity Health-Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.
Adrian Dominican Sisters File Photo

January 29, 2026, Adrian, Michigan – Adrian Dominican Co-workers Jennifer Hunter and Sara Stoddard – Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, respectively – represent a trend among lay workers in religious congregations who take on executive roles. 

Jennifer and Sara – and their counterparts in other congregations of women religious – are filling leadership positions that once belonged to the vowed Sisters themselves.

“It’s a real gift to have these incredible, dedicated women in these pivotal leadership roles in our congregation,” Prioress Elise D. García, OP, told Dan Stockman in an interview for Global Sisters Report. “We couldn’t do it without them.” She noted in the article that lay people are “filling positions we no longer have an abundance of candidates among sisters to fill.”

Like other lay leaders interviewed in the article, Sara said that the culture of the Sisters is different from that of corporations. While the Sisters are good stewards of their money, she noted, their focus is on doing what is right. 

Many of the lay leaders in the article spoke of the satisfaction they have found in working with women religious. “We’ve grown to love this work and the congregation we serve,” Jennifer told Global Sisters Report. “The sisters are part of our family.”

Read the entire article by Dan Stockman and a related article about Adrian Dominican Co-workers experiencing the Dominican heritage.

Caption for above feature photo: Jennifer Hunter, Chief Operating Officer; Sara Stoddard, Chief Financial Officer