In synod reports, US Catholics call for women’s leadership, LGBTQ welcoming

More than a half million U.S. Catholics have participated in synodal listening sessions over the past year as part of Pope Francis’ two-year process of grassroots listening ahead of the 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome, and responses indicate that many Americans want a more welcoming church that reaches out to the marginalized, especially the LGBTQ community, and that allows women to serve in leadership positions, including ordained ministry.

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The role of women in the Catholic Church was another common concern. Participants said that women deserve to be in important leadership positions in the church, even in roles that are currently cut off to them via ordained ministry in the permanent diaconate and priesthood. Synod participants framed the issue as a matter of equity and justice.

“It is encouraging to see the sense of the faithful that encourages women’s ordination, something we know to be true, to be reflected in these official documents,” said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, an organization that advocates for women to be ordained deacons, priests and bishops in the Catholic Church.

McElwee told NCR that she found it “very powerful” to see the grassroots call for women’s ordination reflected in synod reports, adding that to “see their voices and longing reflected in them is a positive sign.”

Read the entire article in the National Catholic Reporter.