Samizdat Group

The history of womens religious communities during the past fifty years is only now being written. This book details the transformation in the 1960s of one community, the Congregation of the Humility of Mary, commonly known as the Humilities of Iowa. After a thoroughly collaborative process led by a brilliant and courageous woman, Sister Bernadine Pieper, four hundred Humilities adopted a new mission to serve poor and disadvantaged persons, pursue justice and peace, and promote the care of the earth. To carry out this mission, they encouraged the individual sisters to determine where and how they would serve consistent with their common values. Through these reforms, considered radical at the time, the Humilities have done amazing work benefiting hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.