On Tuesday, the long-awaited Vatican report on women’s religious life in the US is to be released. It follows a three-year apostolic visitation led by a senior American sister who here describes how she set about the task and her hopes for its conclusions Our lives can sometimes be dramatically changed for several years by a single conversation. I remember, as if it were yesterday, taking a brief telephone call from Cardinal Franc Rodé, then prefect for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, towards the end of 2008. When he asked if I would be willing to conduct an apostolic visitation to the nearly 400 institutes of women Religious in the United States, I felt overwhelmed. Although I realised immediately the task would be we