Baltimore Archbishop William Lori this week praised an assembly of women religious major superiors for their witness of “evangelical poverty,” with the prelate noting the outsized influence that women religious have had on American society over the past 250 years.
“You and those who came before you have taught our children, tended to the sick, welcomed immigrants, accompanied the dying, consoled the brokenhearted, and proclaimed Christ where no one else was willing to go,” the archbishop told the major superiors on September 18 in Florissant, Missouri.
“For that, the Church gives thanks. But gratitude alone is not enough. The Church also looks to you with hope,” he said.
The archbishop spoke at the 2026 National Assembly of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the theme of which was: “250 Years of Freedom: Daughters of the Church from One Generation to the Next.”
The council comprises major superiors and vicars from 112 religious communities around the US The group describes its national assembly as “the springboard for collaboration, participation, and dialogue among members” which “promotes unity among the major superiors that gives witness to the joy of religious life.”
Women religious “changed the nation because they first allowed Christ to change them,” the archbishop said. He noted the “paradox” in which those who take vows of poverty “enriched countless communities” and those who “renounced worldly ambition” often “exercised the greatest influence upon society.”
