CLAR Invites Religious To Be Sentinels of Hope

By Sister Helen Mueting 

From November 22 to 24, 2025, I was privileged to attend the Latin American Confederation of Religious Conference in Cordoba, Argentina. Sister Helga Leija, who was attending the conference as a reporter for Global Sisters Report, invited me to accompany her to the conference. More than 400 religious attended in person and another 600 took part via Zoom, tuning in from more than 20 countries. Although my understanding of the talks was limited because they were mostly in Spanish, the experience touched me in several ways. 

I felt a kindred spirit with the attendees — religious men and women who, like me, are experiencing many of the present issues in our Church and world. They are faced with diminishing and aging communities, as we are in the United States. Some are living under oppressive governments in countries such as Nicaragua, Bolivia, and El Salvador. All are seeking hope through mutual support and sharing. 

Sol Prieto, an Argentine sociologist, presented a picture of inequality plaguing Latin America, where the wealthiest 1% control an overwhelming portion of the continent’s resources. Place of birth, skin color, or sex largely determine whether a person will live in poverty.

The concentration of wealth deepens poverty and perpetuates systems that trap the most vulnerable.  

Father Luis Fernando Falco’ Pliego, a Missionary of the Holy Spirit from Mexico, highlighted the challenges men and women religious face in Latin America: fewer resources, declining vocations, and aging communities.  He urged us to see these challenges as an opportunity of hope rather than a time of crisis.  He spoke about the need for strategic downsizing in religious life, encouraging us to focus on where we can truly make a difference. 

In her closing remarks, Sister Liliana Franco, President of the Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Religious Life (CLAR) and a sister of the Company of Mary, reminded us the work of justice requires us to accept that the path we’ve chosen is not always the most comfortable.  She urged us to

“embrace that tension between death and life, between steps that move us forward and paralysis that keeps us from walking, between intuitions and calls of the Spirit that propel us beyond and shortsightedness that roots us in the comfort of the familiar.” 

The message of the conference was that the way forward is by working together, walking together, and staying with and trusting those with whom we live and work. In the words of Franco, “Staying locked up in our institutions not only reduces us, makes us smaller, but can even suffocate us.” We are called to be sentinels of hope to our communities and our world.