We Should All Be Like Nuns

How Their Example of Justice, Courage, and Joy Keeps Shaping Movements 

Franceska Bruny
June 10, 2026

 

One evening after my Anglican Missions class, I shared with a friend how much I’d been learning about the history of the Anglican Church, the connections between the Catholic Church and missionaries, and, most importantly, how excited I was to be learning directly from a nun. Not that it was new to me. I grew up in Catholic school and spent most of my education around nuns. 

I found myself questioning, “Should I become a nun? Is this the call? What is it exactly that makes me fascinated with our sisters?” I concluded that I do want to be like nuns, and everyone else should, too. I don’t necessarily mean you should sell all your belongings and join the local order. I mean that nuns have been and continue to be a vital part of social movements, and we need their inspiration now more than ever to shape a better world.  

They’re not usually at the forefront making it a point to be seen, but they’re always present with ideas, devotion, discipline, and a willingness to serve. They operate without needing applause. We should strive to be like these sisters who support movements that improve people’s lives because their faith compels them to show up.

Outside of the orders that shaped much of my upbringing in Boston, the Sisters of Charity of Halifax and the Sisters of St. Joseph, I later learned about Sister Corita Kent, who as Chair of the Art Department at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, turned pop art into theology and protest. 

Sr. Corita used advertising slogans, scripture, and bold color to critique capitalism, racism, and the Vietnam War. In the 1960s, her classroom became a hub of creative dissent. She believed art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed, and she embodied that belief through printmaking that was unapologetically political and joyful. 

One of her most notable pieces is one I’m familiar with as a native Bostonian: the Rainbow Swash, a design painted on a large gas tank. Commissioned in 1971, the sweeping bands of color are often interpreted as a subtle commentary on the Vietnam War and are widely recognized as the world’s largest copyrighted work of art. What most people drive past without a second thought is actually a massive piece of public art rooted in faith, resistance, and imagination. Sister Corita shows us that being like a nun can look like creative defiance, disciplined enough to master craft and bold enough to color a skyline.  

Then there’s Sister Mary Antona Ebo of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary in St. Louis, one of the first Black women to enter her order. She marched in Selma after Bloody Sunday in 1965 and explained her presence by saying, “I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and I want to bear witness.” Holding theology, politics, and identity together, she refused to separate her race from her vocation or her faith from her fight for justice. 

After Selma, Ebo served as a hospital administrator and spoke openly about racism within the church. She models embodied witness at the intersection of race and faith. Being like a nun, in her case, meant public moral clarity and reform from within, even when the institution was slow to change. 

Most recently, I learned about Sister Thea Bowman, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration who became one of the most influential Black Catholic voices of the 20th century. In 1989, while terminally ill, she addressed the U.S. bishops and challenged them to confront racism within the Church. She did so with clarity, humor, and song, even inviting them to sing “We Shall Overcome.” 

Sister Thea brought Black spirituals and call and response traditions into Catholic liturgy and advocated for inculturation, faith expressed through Black cultural forms. It gave me joy to see her affirm experiences and music I grew up with in Haitian Catholic services. She shows that being like a nun can look like prophetic joy and telling the truth while still singing. 

There are many more examples, but I want to be like the sisters who came before us and who are still working among us. They choose community, purpose, and conviction over comfort, ego and popularity. If what it means to be a sister is creative resistance, visible justice, and joyful reform, then we should all strive to be like nuns. The world needs it. 

Franceska Bruny is a Master of Arts in Social Justice student at Union Theological Seminary and a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller. She served as an Advocacy Intern with NETWORK, supporting policy research and advocacy on immigration and economic justice. Franceska’s work explores how storytelling, theology, and creative practice can foster community dialogue and collective liberation This column originally appeared in the Quarter 2 2026 issue of Connection magazine.