On a bright afternoon earlier this week, two Roman Catholic sisters sat on the stoop of their assisted-living quarters near downtown Los Angeles with spirits as bold as the day they entered religious life -- one of them more than half a century ago.
As Sister Virginia Fabilli, 84, held a poster protesting the possibility of war in Iraq, Sister Christa Salinas, 62, rang a bell as passersby honked and waved.
When a Vietnam veteran stopped to show them his battle scar and voice opposition to war, Salinas clanged her bell noisily and yelled, "You're right! No war! God bless you!"
In other parts of Los Angeles, their fellow Sister Diane Donoghue is pressing for more low-income housing. Sister Maribeth Larkin is organizing neighborhoods of mostly poor immigrants to speak up for their rights. Sister Theresa Marie Chen is arguing on behalf of her mentally ill clients in jails, courts and federal bureaucracies.
In Sacramento, Sister Simone Campbell is directing the first political lobbying organization ever established by a group of California women religious: Jericho, an interfaith coalition that advocates for the needs of the poor in housing, health care and other fields.
More than 75 years after establishing themselves in Los Angeles, the good Sisters of Social Service are still raising Cain.
Today , the sisters will mark the end of their yearlong 75th jubilee celebration with a Mass of Thanksgiving at Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino. A reception will follow at the nearby Holy Spirit Retreat Center, which the sisters operate as a place of spiritual repose that welcomes 12,000 people a year of all faith backgrounds.
Their social and political activism distinguishes the sisters from many of the 125 institutes representing 1,800 women religious in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. But it reflects the bold, reformist vision of their founder, Sister Margaret Slachta, the first woman elected to the Hungarian Parliament.
In 1923, Slachta and a few others split from another religious group and formally established the Sisters of Social Service. At a time when most women religious were cloistered behind convent walls or clustered in hospitals or schools, Slachta's desire to walk the streets to care for the alienated and poor represented a radical notion -- one that has remained the community's driving mission.
