08/15/2026
On the fourth and final day of LCWR’s 70th anniversary gathering, participants entered a deeply moving experience of prayer, lament, and public witness through the Jericho Walk, the LCWR 70th Anniversary Walk of Lament and Hope. Rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures and the tradition of nonviolent public witness, the walk invited participants to circle in silence around a central space holding the injustices and suffering of our world. The sound of the shofar broke the silence, the steady rhythm of the drum guided each group’s steps, and lanterns of hope were placed into the space as visible signs of commitment. Between the seven circuits, the community prayed the Litany of Saints, invoking the spirit of those who had spoken truth to power and remembering founders and foundresses whose courage continues to inspire religious life. In that sacred movement, the past seemed to walk beside the present, reminding everyone that the prophetic call of religious life has always required both contemplation and action.
What was especially touching was the way participants entered the walk with their whole selves. There was a profound sense that they were not simply naming the wounds of the world, but allowing those wounds to enter their prayer. At the beginning, words symbolizing the community’s lament and commitment were placed into the water: racism, forced migration, climate crisis, violence, poverty, and the right to vote. These were not abstract issues. They represented people, communities, and a wounded Earth calling for attention, compassion, and response. The walk became an invitation to remain close to those realities rather than turn away from them, and to ask what faithfulness to the Gospel requires in this moment.
The seven circuits then brought participants face to face with commitments at the heart of LCWR’s public witness: upholding the inherent right to life and the dignity of every person; welcoming immigrants and providing care and assistance while advocating for comprehensive immigration reform; standing against violence in all its forms; dismantling racism in all its manifestations; caring for our common home, Earth, through attentive stewardship and decisive action; working to alleviate poverty in all its forms; and exercising the responsibility to vote while advocating for the protection of this opportunity for others. Although each circuit named a particular reality, together they revealed something deeper. Human dignity, migration, racism, violence, poverty, care for creation, and participation in democracy cannot be separated from one another. Each touches the dignity of the human person and each calls for a response rooted in the Gospel.
The silence between the words carried its own power. Participants heard again the conviction that human dignity does not depend upon ability, wealth, position, race, place of birth, or the choices a person has made. It is inherent in every human life. From that conviction flowed the other commitments of the walk. To defend human dignity means welcoming the stranger, accompanying those forced to migrate, rejecting violence, confronting racism through truth-telling, reconciliation, repentance, and repair, standing with people experiencing poverty, protecting Earth, and safeguarding the participation of all people in society. The walk offered more than a list of social concerns. It revealed a spiritual vision in which everything is connected and in which the Gospel calls religious life to stand precisely where life and dignity are threatened.
Again and again came the invitation, “Pause to Offer a Lantern of Hope.” That simple action became one of the most powerful images of the morning. The lantern did not pretend that the darkness was absent. It was placed precisely where suffering and injustice had been named. Each light represented the commitment to make actions match words as participants left the sacred space. Hope, therefore, was not presented as optimism or as an escape from painful realities. Hope became a spiritual discipline, a responsibility, and a promise to act. One lantern after another illuminated the space until the community could see, quite literally, that even in the places where the world is most wounded, light can still be carried.
As the seven circuits came to an end, participants gathered around a commitment larger than any individual person or congregation. They pledged to continue deepening their understanding of the root causes of injustice and to work toward “a transformation of consciousness” capable of bringing about a more loving society and justice for the world. The closing words carried particular weight after everything that had been named and prayed: “We pledge to live our call to be courageous witnesses of love, refusing to surrender our moral authority or succumb to despair.” After walking prayerfully with racism, migration, violence, ecological crisis, poverty, and threats to voting rights, the community did not end in despair. It paused one final time to offer a lantern of hope.
The Jericho Walk became a powerful expression of the spirit that has carried LCWR through 70 years and now calls it toward the future. Participants walked carrying the wisdom of those who came before them, the suffering of the world as it is today, and the responsibility of what comes next. Their steps became prayer, their silence became lament, their lanterns became commitment, and their presence became a shared proclamation that hope must be lived. The words that helped frame the walk captured this spirit: “As we embrace this direction, we remain filled with hope, inspired by the radical call of the Gospel and committed to discerning together the leading of God’s Spirit.” On this final morning, those words were no longer simply spoken. They were walked.
Following the profound experience of the Jericho Walk, the gathering moved from lament and commitment into gratitude and celebration. A special 70th anniversary video invited participants to look back across seven decades of LCWR’s journey, beginning in 1956 and tracing a story shaped by attentive listening to the Spirit, courageous leadership, generous response, and an enduring willingness to read the signs of the times. The video remembered how what began as an effort to strengthen communication and collaboration among women religious grew into a community of leaders committed to one another, the church, and the life of the world. It told a story of 70 years of listening, leading, responding, and coming together, not for themselves alone, but for the life of the world.
Across those decades, LCWR has helped shape a way of leadership grounded not primarily in power, but in presence. The anniversary reflection recalled leadership that listens, discerns, collaborates, and dares to respond, leadership rooted in contemplation and attentive to God’s presence in communities and in the realities of the world. Again and again, LCWR members have gathered in moments of uncertainty to seek wisdom together and move forward through discernment. The video also remembered the countless women religious who served in classrooms, hospitals, places of shelter and struggle, and communities on the margins, often without recognition, but with extraordinary generosity and steadfast love. Their leadership helped expand opportunities, restore dignity, accompany people who were suffering, and bring hope into places where hope was desperately needed.
The anniversary story also remembered LCWR’s voice within the church and its decades of solidarity and advocacy for justice. Women religious have been willing to ask difficult questions, engage with complexity, create spaces for dialogue, and speak truth with humility. They have listened to the cries of people experiencing poverty, displacement, violence, racism, and injustice, choosing presence over distance and relationship over indifference. Their advocacy for human dignity, peace, justice, and the integrity of creation has emerged not simply from social concern, but from lives grounded in the Gospel. Beneath the leadership, service, advocacy, and courage to respond has always been a deeper source, listening for the voice of God in prayer, in community, and in the cries of the world.
The celebration then turned toward the women whose leadership has carried LCWR through these seven decades. Past LCWR presidents and executive directors were recognized with deep gratitude, honoring those who accepted the responsibility of leadership in times of both clarity and uncertainty. Each brought her own gifts, wisdom, courage, and faithfulness, yet together their leadership tells a larger story of continuity and transformation. Those former leaders who were present at the gathering were invited to come forward and be recognized, creating a particularly touching moment as generations of LCWR leadership stood together. Their presence embodied the anniversary itself, honoring those who helped shape the conference while making visible the living legacy now being entrusted to others. The moment echoed the words of the anniversary celebration: “Still listening. Still leading. Still becoming.”
The celebration of 70 years then came to its culmination in the transfer of presidential leadership, a ritual that beautifully held together gratitude, continuity, and hope. Leadership was not simply changing hands; it was being entrusted once again for the life of the conference and its mission. Sister Vicky Larson, PBVM, Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, moved into the role of past-president; Sister Debra Sciano, SSND, School Sisters of Notre Dame, assumed the role of president; and Sister Betsy Pawlicki, OP, Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters, became president-elect, together forming the LCWR 2026 Presidential Leadership Team.
After a morning of walking, remembering, honoring, and celebrating, the transfer carried a particularly profound meaning. The same Spirit that has accompanied LCWR through seven decades was now calling another circle of women to listen, discern, and lead together. It was not simply an ending to the 70th anniversary gathering, but a sending forth. Surrounded by the legacy of those who had led before them and by the commitment of the members gathered around them, the presidential team received the responsibility of carrying LCWR’s mission into what is still unfolding. The moment embodied the story celebrated throughout these days: leadership is received, shared, and eventually entrusted to others. Seventy years of faithful leadership now opens toward the next chapter, still listening, still discerning, still responding, and still becoming together in the Spirit.
