Gina Ciliberto is a writer who lives in Minneapolis, Minn., by way of the Bronx. She writes about religion, social justice, food and travel. Her work has been published in Bon Appétit , National Catholic Reporter , HuffPost, ThinkProgress and YES Magazine , among others. She also works as the online communications and programming specialist for the Dominican Sisters of Hope.
In her free time, Gina enjoys fostering bulldogs and companioning small groups of Catholic Sisters and millennial seekers via Nuns and Nones. Follow her on Twitter @ginaciliberto.
Posts By This Author
How Pastors in the Most Segregated Area in the U.S. Are Turning Out Black Voters
Rev. Greg Lewis, assistant pastor at Saint Gabriel’s Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee and president and founder of Souls to the Polls. Photo courtesy of Souls to the Polls
Souls to the Polls has a big vision: energizing 100,000 Milwaukee residents to vote. To get there, the nonpartisan organization educates, registers, and transports voters to polling sites in Wisconsin, a battleground state with rising COVID-19 case numbers.
New Survey Shows the ‘Only Topic That Most Americans Agree On’
Ashley Nealy waits in line to cast her ballot in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 12, 2020. REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berr
According to new survey data released by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 57 percent of Americans ranked fairness of presidential elections as the top critical issue in the country when asked to choose from 14 issues ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to racial inequality.
This Easter, a Group of Muslims in Australia Will Attend Mass — as They Have for the Past 13 Years
This Sunday, Catholic churches across Sydney, Australia will bear the usual signs of Easter: incense, fresh flowers, a lit Paschal candle — and a few rows of churchgoers wearing kufi and headscarves. Every year for the past 13 years, groups of Muslims have attended Easter Mass in the Sydney Archdiocese and Broken Bay Diocese.
'How Can They Come to the Water?'
On a Saturday afternoon in the New York City suburb, Ossining, N.Y., Bette Ann Jaster, OP sits in the chapel at Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center. The priest is preaching about the baptism of Jesus, in which Jesus was invited by John to come to the water. As she listens, Jaster, a Dominican Sister of Hope, can't help but hear his words literally.
At the time, media sources were spilling the news that the Flint, Mich., water was toxic. Jaster reflected on the fact that, for over a year, the water flowed steadily to residents, hospitals, and businesses following a switch in their supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River to save money.
The News You Haven’t Heard from the Pope’s Meeting with Women Religious
Sister Lorelle Elcock, OP
For the past week, news sources have been abuzz about Pope Francis’s announcement to create a commission to study women deacons. It’s an initiative worthy of talk, but there’s more to the story.
Why Justice and Peace Can Take Longer Than We Think
Image via Lewis Tse Pui Lung/Shutterstock.com
Sisters from the Dominican Sisters of the Sick-Poor (also now Dominican Sisters of Hope) sent representatives to marches. They saw systemic injustice firsthand in their ministries as they provided nursing services to residents of Harlem, the South Bronx, and other communities that struggled to afford healthcare.
Years after participating in equal rights and peace marches, Sister Bette Ann Jaster joined LifeWay Network, one of two organizations in the New York Metro area that provides safe housing and education for women survivors of human trafficking, as a representative for Sisters and Catholics in general. Her involvement on the committee has since declined, but Sister Bette Ann is as bothered by the issue as ever. “I keep wondering, ‘What more can we do?’” she said.