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Saints Next Door
On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis prayed for the dead as well as for the priests, doctors and nurses who he said represented the "saints next door" during the coronavirus pandemic. Over the next months, National Catholic Reporter and Global Sisters Report will be bringing the stories of Catholics in this crisis: those who have died, but also those whose service brings hope. To submit names of people for consideration for this series, please send a note to saintsnextdoor@ncronline.org.
Read NCR's Saints Next Door stories here.
At hospital and convent, Sr. Mary Flood's life these days is about containing the coronavirus, drawing on her experiences as a doctor during the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis, as well as her past in virus research.
When COVID-19 struck the Felician Sisters' convent in Livonia, Michigan, 13 members died. In many ways, because of restrictions to prevent the virus' return, the surviving sisters' grieving has yet to begin.
A Sister of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and chief physician assistant at North Central Bronx hospital, Sr. Mary Catherine Redmond has been a bridge between providers and their patients. Like other sisters, her decades-long service has been undergirded by a commitment to social justice.
The headlines of a new coronavirus arriving in Colombia came as Sr. Johana Rivera Ramos prepared for the happiest and most consequential moment of her life to date. The 33-year-old member of the Hermanas Franciscanas de la Inmaculada (Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate), a Valencian order out of Spain, planned to take her perpetual vows.
