Catholic Women Strike: Lent 2025
For Immediate Release
March 5, 2025
Catholic women around the world will begin a Lenten strike on Wednesday, March 5th, withholding time, labor, and financial resources from the Roman Catholic Church.
Catholic Women Strike, organized by the Women’s Ordination Conference and global partners, seeks to disrupt a patriarchal status quo that too often depends on the invisible labor and good will of women while denying women access to ordained ministries and an equal place at decision-making tables.
Women are the lifeblood of the church, coordinating the vast majority of parish ministries around the world, and serving as deacons and priests in everything but name in places where clergy are scarce. Our intention with the strike is to make visible what is too often invisible, and insist the church moves quickly to open ordination rites to women.
The Synod on Synodality, a multi-year process looking at the needs of the church today, raised hopes that the church might finally move toward women’s equitable inclusion in the life of the church. But the sessions concluded without clear steps for reform for women in ministry, with Vatican officials equivocating repeatedly: “the time is not ripe” for women deacons, and “more study is needed.”
Catholic women around the world reject these endless stalling tactics and through the Catholic Women Strike will issue their clear “no more” to the continued denial of their equality.
“What we’ve learned in preparing for the Catholic Women Strike is that women are ready – beyond ready – for the church to recognize their equality. And they’re willing to take great risks to make that known,” said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference.
March 9th, the first Sunday of Lent will be a global “Day of Action” with WOC leadership kicking off the strike in Washington, DC with a prayerful rally. Participation will take many creative forms throughout the Lenten season, from wearing visible symbols of the strike, to emptying pews, to withholding resources.
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Contact: Kate McElwee, Executive Director
kmclewee@womensordination.org