What's Happening

April 21, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – On behalf of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, the Congregation’s General Council issued the following statement in response to the death of Pope Francis.
 
We awakened this Easter Monday to the sorrowful news that our beloved Pope Francis, 88, has died.
 
Irish American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo or acting head, somberly announced: “Dearest brothers and sisters, it is with profound sadness I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”  
 
In his 12-year papacy, Pope Francis made consequential changes to our Church and world for which we will always be grateful. Among these, he called us into a culture of encuentro with one another, into an integral ecology for the common good of God’s people and our Earth home, and into being a Synodal Church – inclusive, listening, and in communion on mission. In powerful word, gesture and deed, he reached out with great compassion to the desperate, destitute and marginalized, cried out for an end to the horror of war and for joyfully embracing migrants in welcome.
 
We hold Pope Francis in prayer as he enters new life in God’s loving embrace. We also pray for our Church and world as we mourn the loss of this loving, impactful global leader – that we may carry forward his historic legacy.
 

Photo credit: "File:Farewell to Pope Francis in the Galeão Air Force Base.jpg" by Tania Rego/ABr is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

April 7, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – On behalf of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, the General Council of the Congregation has issued the following statement, calling for building a beloved community among the American people in the face of the many dehumanizing executive actions and decisions of the Trump Administration.

Since President Trump took office more than two months ago, we have been deeply pained and alarmed by executive actions and orders that challenge our fundamental values and commitments as women of faith in the Catholic and Dominican traditions.

When we Adrian Dominican Sisters gathered in 2022 to set our direction for the next six years, we made a commitment to “build the beloved community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger and hate.” We called ourselves to the task of dismantling unjust systems “that oppress, dehumanize and deny the image of God in each of us and Earth community.” We committed ourselves to “acknowledge and repent of our complicity in the divisions prevalent in our Church and our world.” 

We felt called to make these commitments by the Gospel imperative to love one another as God loves us. We also felt called by the Dominican motto of Veritas – Truth – honored by all members of the world-wide Order of Preachers, founded in the 12th century by St. Dominic. 

In the past 11 weeks, we have witnessed a staggering array of orders issued by the White House and its agents with deeply troubling impacts that oppress and dehumanize persons, deny the image of God in each of us, and dangerously divide us as a nation and global community.  

We have witnessed these dehumanizing impacts in the harsh treatment of refugees and immigrants, some of whom were arrested and, without due process, deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. We have witnessed them in the disturbing termination of visas, without notice, of law-abiding international students – some of whom, shockingly, were apprehended by masked agents, whisked away in unmarked vehicles, and flown to Louisiana to be held in detention centers. 

We have witnessed dehumanizing impacts in the erasure from museums, national parks and government websites of our nation’s history of racism – a shameful history we had finally begun to acknowledge as truth. We similarly witnessed it in the erasure of unknown and well-known stories highlighting the heroism and ingenuity of Black, Native American, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and other historically marginalized Americans, including women. “Across the federal government,” NPR reports, “agencies have been scrubbing photographic and written references about women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community from their websites.” Transgender and non-binary persons have “faced the most consistent removal from government websites,” according to NPR. Transgender persons, made in the image of God like all human beings, are the explicit targets of several dehumanizing executive orders, including one barring them from military service. 

We have witnessed dehumanization in the blunt firing, without cause, of more than 24,000 workers in 18 federal agencies, according to CBS News, some with outstanding performance evaluations. These firings are creating immediate hardships for laid-off federal workers and their families. 

The firings will also soon impact the wellbeing of ordinary Americans served daily – in visible and invisible ways – by the wide range of critical services government workers provide. These include programs that prevent the spread of infectious diseases; ensure the safety of our food and drugs; respond to natural disasters; uphold standards of education and the availability of libraries, museums, the arts and sciences; ensure consumer protection; offer food and shelter for those in need and Meals on Wheels for elders; provide mental health care; protect our water, air, fish and wildlife habitats; and care for veterans and first responders, among many other essential services. 

We are witnessing the dehumanizing impact of White House orders in the alarming dismantling of the Social Security Administration, the nation’s largest government program. The draconian workforce reductions, closure of offices, and new ID demands on beneficiaries pose a clear and present danger to the health and wellbeing of millions of elderly Americans who have worked all their lives, paid into the system, and now rely on social security checks to cover their basic housing and food needs.

We are witnessing division and discord – as well as dangerous economic instability – in the stunning levy, without rationale, of tariffs on nations across the world. Among its
disturbing impacts, the U.S. tariffs are bringing an end to a decades-long global era of “alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect” with a “free and open exchange of goods,” as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney remarked. 

All of these and other deeply concerning White House actions run counter to our commitments as Dominican women of faith to build a beloved community – and are undermining the democratic values and ideals we hold dear as U.S. citizens.

We call on members of Congress to exercise their Constitutional authority to uphold the programs, agencies and departments that they, our elected leaders, enacted on behalf of and for the good of the American people. If members of Congress wish to upend them, the House and Senate have clear legislative means to do so in ways that comport with our nation’s ideal of a government of, by and for the people.  

We pray that the goodwill characteristic of the American people of all faith traditions will call us to kinder, more compassionate, respectful, and generous ways of being good caring neighbors to one another – and to all the other beautifully diverse peoples of the world’s nations, neighbors in our common Earth home.

 

Members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council are Sisters Elise D. García, OP, Prioress; Bibiana “Bless” Colasito, OP, and Frances Nadolny, OP, General Councilors; Lorraine Réaume, OP, Vicaress and General Councilor; and Corinne Sanders, OP, General Councilor.