My Moment of Reflection

Coming into this position of being an intern for the Women’s Ordination Conference and taking part in being a blog editor, I was excited yet nervous. I will admit that my knowledge of certain topics in Catholic news was hazy. This sparked the nervousness I felt in the beginning. However, that soon changed. The more I started reading and posting the blogs every Tuesday and Saturday, my brain began to digest every piece of information. Within the two weeks that I began posting blogs, I learned so much about what is going on in the Catholic news in regard to women’s ordination, the synod on synodality, the pope, etc. So much interest was sparked within me to learn more.

I have come to have a deep appreciation for every blog post that was posted. More so, I look forward every week to these posts and taking my time to read them. I learn something new every week! Learning new information is something that is very important to me. For me, knowledge is power. The more that is learned, the more that one can understand something on a deeper level or understand that a change needs to be made. It was important to me to learn more about what is happening now in terms of women’s ordination and other topics within the Roman Catholic Church. These are important topics that need to be discussed and shared. I think these blogs are a fantastic way to share and discuss these issues with others. When I read the blog posts, there is a strong emotion within me that is sparked. This emotion can vary from passion, surprise, intrigue, etc. I thoroughly enjoy reading every week the wonderful posts that are written by all these great authors! Throughout the week, I sometimes catch myself searching for more information on a topic that a blog post may have talked about.

Something that makes me enjoy all of this more is when something I read about is later on discussed in my Christian Feminist Theology course. I get a little excited when I see that my course and my internship overlap. For example, a couple of weeks ago, my professor assigned readings from a book called Womanpriest: Tradition and Transgression in the Contemporary Roman Catholic Church by Jill Peterfeso. Essentially, this book discusses the topic of women’s ordination and women priests! More specifically, the book talks about the Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) and the international movement to ordain women. As well, we were assigned to watch the film Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, which was directed by Jules Hart. Our class learned more about the women’s ordination movement within the Roman Catholic Church through individuals who discussed their thoughts or experiences. What was interesting was watching authors, woman priests, and male priests discuss women’s ordination. What was so exciting for me was how the WOC was behind this event of pink smoke over the Vatican! Something amazing that occurred in one of my classes was when we were able to join a zoom meeting with a women priest who lives in the United States! This was a really cool moment because my classmates and I got to directly hear from a woman priest who is fighting for women’s ordination and has experienced so much. Hearing about her own personal experiences in being a woman priest and how she is currently dealing with everything that happened to her after she became a priest was very inspiring. This was one of my favorite classes throughout this course. Aside from her personal anecdotes, my class was able to ask her questions. She gave very insightful and thoughtful answers, which allowed us to learn even more about her experience. Throughout the zoom, she continued to mention that we are in a new moment. I continue to pray and have hope that we are in a new moment. More than ever, it is important to continue the fight for women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. Hearing her perspective on women’s ordination and the Roman Catholic Church was incredibly insightful. Many topics that she discussed are what I read in the blog posts. This was a full-circle moment for me, and it is one that I appreciated so much.

This was just a glimpse into the course I am currently taking and what my classmates and I are currently learning or discussing about. Seeing how my class and the blog overlap is truly an awesome feeling. As I felt the passion of this movement within our guest speaker, I feel that same passion within the blogs. As I continue to read and feel this passion, I too begin to be engulfed in this feeling. It has truly been an amazing experience so far reading and posting for the blog. I have learned and continue to learn so much. It has been incredibly refreshing. Reading everything that has been posted has allowed me to see how this is such an important outlet for sharing so much knowledge and news with individuals. Every week, I enjoy the time that I have to solely focus on posting and reading. I make sure to dedicate this time to thoroughly reading the topic discussed and digesting every piece of information that is written. As I take a moment to look back and think, I am really grateful for being able to intern for an amazing organization that has allowed me to learn so much!

Isabella Sanchez-Rodriguez is currently a senior attending the University of San Francisco where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She is currently interning for the WOC as a blog editor.