Catholic Women’s Council Synod Findings

October 3, 2022

For Immediate Release

On 4 October 2022, an international delegation from the Catholic Women’s Council (CWC), a global umbrella network of more than 60 Catholic women’s organizations, will present their synodal synthesis to the Vatican’s synod office. From March through June 2022, CWC coordinated many sessions of discernment, discussion, and prayer with women, including theologians, across the continents.    

Engaging the topics of the situation of women in the church; power and participation; structures, transparency, and accountability; sacramental life; and resistance and hope, the CWC took special care to include the rich diversity of opinions, contexts, cultures, dreams, and pains of women around the world. CWC asserts that there is no single “voice of women,” but women are protagonists on the synodal path.

The report affirms: “Despite our differences, we share in the belief that the full participation of women in the Church’s institutional and sacramental life is the single most effective sign that the Church’s leaders are committed to building a truly Synodal Church.”

When women around the world speak of their experience of the Church, the most common term used is frustration. Women are frustrated by the abuse of power, clericalism, discrimination, sexism, and fear they experience in Church settings. However, the report notes that in many parts of the world, “frustration” is only the surface. The report underscores the ways in which the Church’s treatment of women and its culture of “male supremacy” leads to a prevalence of gender-based violence in society, and spiritual and sexual abuse within the church.  

The report also explores the ways women around the world articulate a broad understanding of sacramental life. The women in this report emphasized repeatedly that the Church must deepen its metaphors and language for the Divine and its Mystery so that no person, regardless of gender or sexual identity is excluded. Moreover, women called for the Church to further develop a “sacramentality of care,” so that Christians may better attend to the unprecedented inequalities of our time, and proactively address the devastation of the Earth due to climate change.

The report concludes with a reflection on the tensions of “Resistance and Hope” that Catholic women navigate. For many women it has become too challenging to participate in an institution that clings to unjust structures. CWC found that women around the world are initiating new ways of being Church, by establishing communities that are inclusive, open, and life-affirming. Yet, women live in hope: for belonging, equality, and dignity in their faith.

As the global Church continues on the synodal path, CWC urges Church leaders to not just listen to the voices of women, but to transform all decision-making and voting processes to include women as equal partners.

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For further information:

info@catholicwomenscouncil.org Or kmcelwee@womensordiantion.org