Sister Jane Aseltyne and Sister Audra Turnbull represented the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) at a powerful global gathering in Rome focused on the future of religious life.Sister Jane Aseltyne (far right) and Sister Audra Turnbull (far left).
Hundreds of young nuns and sisters from all over the world gathered in Rome, June 3–7, to debate the future of religious life and the role of women as leaders in the Church.
HOPE 2025 is a gathering for all Catholic sisters under the age of 65, coordinated by the Leadership Collaborative—a U.S.-based program that fosters leadership skills among women religious globally.
The gathering brought together nearly 200 sisters from six continents at the Fraterna Domus Sacrofano retreat center outside Rome, as well as more than 100 sisters online via Zoom.
Over the course of five days, the sisters met to connect, lament, and lead into the future of religious life and the Church. Offered in five languages, the gathering represented a historic moment that brought the global sisterhood into concrete reality.
Topics that emerged included racism, neo-colonialism, declining vocations, and aging populations. Despite these challenges, HOPE convener Sr. Romina Sapinoso, a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati, offered a message of encouragement, “There is hope because there is a horizon waiting for women religious like us and for our aching, suffering, and beautiful world. We are here, looking at that horizon, and actively participating in God’s creation of it… we have an answer to global indifference […] Global sisterhood. In a time when the world is polarised, fractured, and divided, we are here to connect and engage with one another.”
Sr. Linda Buck, CSJ, Executive Director of the Leadership Collaborative, shared, “The Leadership Collaborative is excited to host this unique opportunity as we continue to explore the current and emerging realities and concretely experience the gift of the global sisterhood. This generation of women religious need to have space for personal and collective exploration, to talk about what is most important, strengthen relationships, and explore our ability as leaders to foster gospel values in the world. As we live into this future, we need to share, pray, and be creative about responding to the Spirit’s movement at this moment.”
The inaugural HOPE gathering was held in January 2024 in Chicago. With more than 250 sisters in attendance, it sparked a call to expand these gatherings and build bridges to support current and future realities in religious life.
The Leadership Collaborative’s mission is to foster transformational leadership for religious life and the Gospel mission—now and into the future. It began with a vision of collaborative, responsive leadership to meet the complexity of today’s world, and continues to develop programs that create space for the deep conversations religious life needs—gazing over the horizon toward what is emerging.