WOC events in NYC – March 2024

As part of the Women’s Ordination Conference’s status as an NGO in consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), we host parallel events at the UN Commission on the Status of Women each year. This year, we have a pair of events coming up coinciding with the CSW in March:

• March 18: “The Women Who Stayed” are hosting WOC for a reception with conversation, connection, and updates on WOC’s efforts at the UN and the ongoing Synod on Synodality. Light refreshments will be served.
  • 5:30-7 p.m.
  • Church of St. Francis Xavier’s Mary Chapel; 55 W. 15th St.
    
    
• March 19: As part of the 68th UN Commission on the Status of Women, WOC will host a parallel event titled: Catholic Theologies: Religious Institutions, Poverty, and Violations of Women’s Rights.
  • 8:30 a.m.
  • Salvation Army, 221 E. 52nd St. (lower level)

About the event: The tradition of Catholic Social Teaching has addressed issues of poverty, economic development, and global inequality since its founding document, Rerum Novarum, was published in 1891. In the mid-twentieth century, Catholic social documents championed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an effective way to address war and poverty. This tradition has continued with recent documents that make explicit connections between climate change, poverty, and consumerism. However, while the social tradition of the Catholic Church makes explicit references to human dignity and the common good, the Church and Holy See itself often fails its own ideals on issues of gender when it comes to funding priorities and policy-making. For example, women are often unpaid and unrecognized for the work they do in parishes. Sacraments in rural areas such as the Amazon region are difficult to celebrate due to the prohibition on women and married people from priestly ministry. And the association of the male priest with Christ has served to sacralize masculinity, thereby perpetuating patriarchy in public and family life, condoning violence against women, and obscuring the widespread poverty amongst women of the Global South.

This forum will bring experts and theologians to consider the relationship between global poverty faced by women and the role of Catholic theologies in addressing or perpetuating this reality. The theology of ministry, sacraments, and priesthood articulated by the Catholic Church often perpetuates gender complementarity and the subordination of women’s labor. The all-male governing body of the Holy See, as a result, is severely compromised in its capacity to uphold women’s rights. And yet, Catholic women, the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, and feminist Catholic theology offer visions for addressing current concerns such as the interrelationship between gender, poverty, and climate change. What is the Catholic Church of the future and its role in addressing human rights concerns? This session aims to explore these tensions and potentialities.