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. 

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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. 

Issues such as immigration or domestic violence take on a human face, she said. “It fuels the activism, because you understand what’s at stake, what’s needed, and it helps you to tell their stories,” she said. 

Tune helped facilitate a town hall meeting held Tuesday night in the basement of Old St. Patrick’s Church at the west end of Chicago’s Loop. 

About 150 people, including several dozen women religious from Chicago and beyond, gathered for a meeting that was part get-out-the-vote rally, part deep policy dive and part Sunday school lesson — with the sisters and their friends urging the audience to put their faith in action when they vote. Although Illinois is not a swing state, Network hopes to grow its presence there.

The sisters led the audience through what Network calls the “Equally Sacred Checklist”— a collection of six freedoms that connect faith to voting issues. Those freedoms include the freedom to be healthy, to participate in a vibrant democracy, to be safe from harm, to care for “ourselves and our families.”

Speakers urged attendees to not be distracted by misinformation or partisan feuds but to instead vote for politicians who would help bring those freedoms to life. Though described as a nonpartisan event, it was clear where most of the speakers stood on the presidential election and other national races.

“I cannot tell you who to vote for,” said Sarah Christopherson, a former congressional staffer and tax justice advocate. “But what I am allowed to tell you is what members of Congress did.”

What Republican members of Congress did, said Christopherson, was allow a temporary expanded child tax credit to expire in 2021. While in place, that credit had been a key tool in fighting childhood poverty, added Christopherson.

Sister Catherine Darcy of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, who told RNS her worries about Christian nationalism prompted her to join the bus tour, warned the audience of the dangers of the ideology, which she said claims “America” belongs to Christian men, and especially wealthy Christians — not to all Americans.

“Christian nationalism is pitting ordinary Americans against one another,” said Darcy. “And it is also manipulating persons of faith big time.”

Duffy, who, like Darcy, works on immigration issues, took on misinformation spread about Haitian immigrants in her home state of Ohio. Saying Haitian immigrants had helped revitalize the city of Springfield, Ohio, and were trying to build a better life for themselves, she rebuked politicians who spread false rumors about immigrants eating pets.

Those rumors were meant as a distraction — and aimed at turning Americans against one another and against immigrants, she said, adding, “People are trying to make us hate them.”

The sister was having none of it. 

“Hate never made this country great,” she said. “What makes our country great is love and compassion, and we can vote that in November.”

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This Nuns on the Bus tour is the first without Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who led Network for nearly 17 years as executive director. Campbell, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, launched the first bus tour in 2012 to oppose budget cuts proposed by Republican Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

But this year without Campbell, the sisters are being joined by ecumenical and secular partners, including representatives of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Gamaliel, Coalition on Human Needs, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Freedom Road, Sojourners, Faith in Action, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and the Children’s Defense Fund.

The inclusion of partners on the tour mirrors a broader trend in the life of women religious in the U.S. As communities of sisters are aging and gaining fewer new members, they are increasingly partnering with laypeople to continue their ministries. After Campbell’s retirement, Network is currently led by Mary Novak, the first layperson to serve as executive director.

Among those in the audience Tuesday night were Sister Cecelia Cavanaugh, a former college professor and Catholic school teacher from Philadelphia, and Liz Ryan, one of her former students.

Cavanaugh, who took part in a 2020 virtual Nuns on the Bus tour (a series of Zoom meetings around the country), had come to Chicago, now Ryan’s home, for a reunion with other former riders.  

Ryan said the event had given her a sense of hope. 

One takeaway was that “we can all be kind, we can all live in a world where we all can thrive, no exceptions,” she said. “I believe that, and I’ve always believed that. But to be here and a part of this, it reaffirms your faith and your belief in humanity.”

Those were lessons — along with learning how to diagram sentences — Ryan said she learned from Cavanaugh, who taught her in grade school and middle school at Resurrection of Our Lord Catholic school in northeast Philadelphia.

Cavanaugh said she was pleased to hear that some of the lessons she taught all those years ago had stuck. She also said the sisters were involved in both policy work and on-the ground ministry. 

“All these sisters, they’re up to their hips in good work,” she said. Many of them were also older and retired, freeing up their time to get involved in activism and what the late Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis called “good trouble.”

“We’re getting older — but it’s freeing,” Cavanaugh said. “People have to have more time to volunteer and get into more trouble. That’s what we should be doing.”