The Maryknoll Monarch Initiative is a new collaborative effort between Maryknoll Lay Missioners and the Maryknoll Sisters. It is based in El Paso, Texas, and housed in the offices of Maryknoll Lay Missioners there.
The vision for the initiative is to awaken global connections through encounter, experience, and solidarity and to foster relationships with creation and poor and marginalized communities that promote the well-being of all people and the planet.
The Maryknoll Monarch Initiative engages participants spiritually, intellectually, and in a journey of faith that calls for personal commitment and collective resolve and action. Its mission is the empowerment of individuals and communities through education, advocacy, and transformative experience.
The inaugural event of the newly formed Maryknoll Monarch Initiative was the “Hope & Resilience at the Border” workshop on March 18. This hybird in-person/online event engaged attendees in insightful discussions with expert speakers and fellow participants at the border. Topics included the status and implications of recent executive orders affecting migrants at the border and throughout the United States and suggested local and national action steps in solidarity.
Watch presentations from the event:
“History of the Border, Migration and Human Rights”
Alan Lizárraga, Border Network for Human Rights
“National and Global Overview on Migration”
Susan Gunn, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
“Listening to the Voices of Migrants”
Maria Sajquim de Torres, Jesuit Refugee Services USA
“Migrant-centered Advocacy in 2025 & Human Trafficking in Migration”
Heidi Cerneka, Maryknoll Lay Missioner & Immigration Lawyer, Las Americas
“The Impact of Administration Policies on Migrants”
Jesús de la Torre, Hope Border Institute
The Maryknoll Monarch Initiative is maintaining a video playlist on the Maryknoll Lay Missioners’ YouTube channel.
ABOUT MARYKNOLL LAY MISSIONERS
Maryknoll Lay Missioners is a Catholic mission-sending community committed to nonviolence through prevention, intervention, reconciliation, and restoration of all creation. We are long-term missioners and missioner families in nine African, Asian, and American countries. Striving to create an inclusive and anti-racist world, we live with those most excluded in society to transform unjust structures together. Learn more at mklm.org.
ABOUT MARYKNOLL SISTERS
Maryknoll Sisters give witness to God’s love and devote our lives in service overseas. As nurses, doctors, teachers, theologians, social workers, environmentalists and more, we serve the needs of the people – the poor, the ailing and the marginalized – where we are missioned. Our mission began in 1912, when we became the first group of Catholic Sisters in the United States founded for overseas mission. Today we have approximately 280 Sisters serving in 19 places around the world.
Jennifer Tomshack was Maryknoll Lay Missioners' communications manager from August, 2024-January, 2026.
