CHICAGO (RNS) — After six years without hitting the road for a political advocacy tour, the Nuns on the Bus are back, and this time they have brought friends along for the ride.
Organized by Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, the cross-country tour kicked off on Sept. 30 in Philadelphia and will end in San Francisco on Oct. 18 after visiting 20 cities. The bus tour is a follow-up to what had been an annual affair between 2012 and 2018 — with the exception of 2017 — as the sisters called for immigration reform, a living wage, improvements to health care and an end to wealth inequality and polarization.
For the 2024 tour, Network, the lobby founded by Catholic sisters in 1971, is citing Pope Francis in calling on Catholics and other “people of goodwill” to be multi-issue voters. The message stands in contrast to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ guidance that “the threat of abortion” should be Catholic voters’ preeminent priority.
On Tuesday (Oct. 8), the bus carrying the sisters and their friends pulled up outside the former rectory of St. Agnes parish to visit the Circle Resource Center, a women’s community center in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.
The two dozen or so riders, a mix of Catholic women religious and representatives of Protestant and secular groups, toured the center before holding a news conference by the front stair.
Sister Sally Duffy, a member of the Sisters of Charity from Cincinnati, launched into the group’s mantra, which was repeated by speakers and riders over the next half hour or so.
“Everybody thrives,” she said, followed by the riders answering, “no exceptions.”
The idea of the visit — and the bus tour — was to get past partisan talking points and focus on the values many Americans share and on solutions that benefit everyone.
“It’s so important to us because it’s the gospel message,” said the 75-year-old Duffy in an interview.
Sister Alicia Gutierrez, executive director of the Circle Resource Center, said the former rectory, once in ill repair, had been transformed into a place where people can belong. Many of the women who attend programs at the Circle are immigrants, seeking a place to belong as they find their way in a new country.
“We wanted to have a place for the women who need friends to keep their hope in this country alive,” said Gutierrez, a member of the Society of Helpers. She said the center has become a place of love and community.
The Rev. Leslie Copeland Tune, senior associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches and one of the friends accompanying the nuns, said that stops on the tour, like the one at the center, have been a kind of prayer — connecting advocacy work to the power of ordinary people’s stories.