About Catholic Sisters Week

Fifty-two weeks a year women religious stand with the poor and immigrants, teach children, fight injustice, heal the sick, share spirituality, empower women, defend the planet, promote peace, create community, offer hope…

But for one week, March 8-14, we shine the spotlight on women religious and encourage a wide range of campaigns and events that invite all who follow Jesus to

• expand and support their gospel witness
• grow the service networks they have seeded
• share their spirituality, charisms, and community
• encourage young women to consider a vocation to religious life
• support their pastoral, teaching and prophetic works
• and focus on the new world they call into being.

Are you planning an in-person or virtual Catholic Sisters Week event or initiative for your organization? Be sure to check out our planning resources, including event and action ideas; an event checklist; and social media and web templates.

Are you interested in attending a Catholic Sisters Week event? Go to our events page to find events near you – or virtual events accessible to all!

PHOTO: Sisters of Charity of Seton HIll

Catholic Sisters Week

Since the fall of 2019, Catholic Sisters Week (formerly National Catholic Sisters Week) is under the direction of Communicators for Women Religious (CWR). As we continue to develop new resources and programming ideas, you will notice both continuity and change, beginning with the name: CWR renamed the initiative “Catholic Sisters Week,” signaling a desire to raise awareness of women religious not just in the United States but also internationally.

Our growing web home, catholicsistersweek.org, will provide space for listing your events, gatherings, campaigns, and activities. This is also where you’ll come to find an event you want to attend, to make a local connection, sign on to an online event, or find ideas for your own events. Information and tools for Catholic Sisters Week 2023 can also be found on this website, with even more landing on the site in the coming weeks.

Who are Women Religious?

They are vowed women who give public witness to Christ through a diversity of ministerial works such as teaching, pastoral care, health care, retreat, and spirituality programs and a multitude of other outreach efforts. They often work on the frontlines of global change, striving to improve various aspects of society, especially for those on the margins. For example, today this can mean efforts to reverse the climate crisis, work for immigration reform, upholding human rights, and other social justice concerns. While prayer and community are integral to the lives of all women religious, some are called to live cloistered lives dedicated full-time to contemplative prayer.

What is a charism?

While each congregation or community of women religious give witness to the gospel, they do it through their unique charism or gift of the spirit. How that gift is lived can change as the world changes and as the membership of the community shifts. Today, many congregations are living their charisms more broadly through the work of non-vowed women and men who make formal commitments to these charisms as associates, oblates, agrégées, or third orders. 

Catholic Sisters Week and Women’s History Month

Catholic Sisters Week began in 2015 as a part of National Women’s History Month. It is now an official component of Women’s History Month. It was authorized by Molly Murphy MacGregor, co-founder of National Women’s History Project, who was educated and deeply influenced by Catholic sisters. In 1981, Women’s History Month launched as a single week. By 1987, U.S. Congress formally expanded it to the full month of March.

Catholic Sisters Week is a project of Communicators for Women Religious, a professional organization of communicators within religious congregations of women. CWR members promote an understanding of women religious, enhance their image and advance their mission.