It was 100 years ago—on Sept. 12, 1921—when the Maryknoll Sisters assigned its first group of sisters to China, the order’s first mission.

My vocation is about a far deeper encounter than a TV show about food can offer, and years later I discovered one of the most profound manifestations of this among children before the Bread of Life himself.

More pressing than the question of whether women can be ordained to the priesthood is the reality that clericalism and sexism have created and sustained a system in which women are treated as second-class citizens.

There is a long way to go before women’s voices are satisfactorily integrated into the central leadership of the church.

Besides taking up the challenge of exploring new frontiers of evangelization in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Brazilian women religious have also become evangelizers of the “old continent,” Europe, where female vocations have radically declined in recent decades.

Increasing the visibility of women and tapping the wisdom they offer will surely encourage laypeople around the world. Religious sisters and nuns were ranked more trustworthy than bishops, priests and the Vatican in a recent survey of U.S. Catholics sponsored by America.