Countdown to Equality – Ten Reasons to Give to WOC

We know that unjust practices and laws don’t reverse themselves. Change is not possible without an empowered grassroots movement.  As we prepare to count down to a new decade, we need your help to keep the movement for women’s equality strong, visible, and vocal. 

While the journey is long, we are determined to work uncompromisingly and unwaveringly for gender justice and women’s ordination in a renewed Roman Catholic Church. 

Please give what you can to support our small organization with a big mission — and let’s truly turn the page to a new decade of equality. Our hope comes from you!

If you need one more reason to give to WOC this holiday season, here are ten. Let’s count down to equality! 

10. In the current teaching of the Catholic Church, there are 7 sacraments for men, 6 for women, and even fewer for people who are queer. But gender equality is a gift from God and a Gospel value. We work to hold the Church to its highest calling.

9. Excluding women from ordained ministry compromises the Church’s ability to be an effective advocate for the rights of women and girls worldwide. Our efforts call the Vatican to account at the United Nations and the Commission on the Status of Women meetings. 

8. Latina Catholics long to express the fullness of God’s presence in their lives.  Our Escuchando a Las Mujeres outreach initiative has created space for community-building, faith-sharing, and the telling of the stories of what it means to be Latina, Catholic women in the U.S. today.

7. Women are the backbone of the Church, and despite barriers to equal leadership and decision-making positions, women do the work. Our global “Catholic Women Strike” campaign in May 2020 will show what happens when women choose to strike from their parishes and demand equality. 

6. The Vatican silences women by excluding them from the rooms where decisions are made. We influence the conversation at the highest levels. For the past two years, our #VotesforCatholicWomen actions in Rome brought the question of women’s voting rights, ministries, and calls for recognition to the forefront of Vatican and synod discussions almost daily.

5. Young Catholics are disaffected and disillusioned with a Church they see as misogynistic, out-of-touch, and harmful to women and LGBTQ+ people.  We support young Catholic women in their ministries by listening, creating spaces for dialogue and questions, and empowering them through our Young Feminist Network. 

4. Women make up more than half of students earning advanced theology degrees, but lack the financial support of seminarians preparing for the priesthood. We are the only organization offering scholarship funding for women and non-binary people discerning ordination in the Catholic Church through the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship. 

3. The liberation of women in the Catholic Church is intrinsically connected to the liberation of women everywhere. As Sr. Joan Chittister said at our “Radicals and the Rule” event in October, “The condition of women in everything – human rights, femicide, climate change, child care issues, sexual abuse – they all stem from the very same thing: The notion of what a woman is as a created being. And churches have warped that meaning for thousands of years.” WOC’s efforts, our questions, and our voices restore what the Church has distorted.

2.  Women’s personhood and vocations are more complex than the simplistic “feminine genius” promoted by the Vatican. WOC holds the tension of calling for ordination of women into a renewed priesthood, supports prophetic obedience of those who answer their call, and knows the value of confronting the institutional church.

1. Discrimination is simply wrong and sexism is a sin. We refuse to let those values define our Church, because WE are the Church. 

If you found a reason (or ten) to stand in solidarity with the Women’s Ordination Conference, please show us your support with a donation today.

Together, let’s make 2020 the start of the decade for equality — we are ready!