Category: Feminism

As you read this, international leaders, climate experts and activists are coming together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland to determine where we are now, and what we need to do in the future, globally, to protect the earth from past, present, and future harm from fossil fuel emissions. I…
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1 In our Church, we who are not male gendered persist in trying to get our messages through to hierarchical powers. Like the people who never acknowledge or reply to our phone or text messages, however, they “ghost” us. They vanish, and they banish us. Andrea Cohen in her poem Ghosting tells us just how…
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Sometimes I do wonder at the contradictions. How do we make sense of it all?  Do women need to be encouraged to lead? I can’t find a text – maybe I don’t want to – of a welcome Pope Francis sent to the Women’s Forum G-20 at their meeting before the global summit. It was…
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I think all who champion the cause of women’s leadership and ordination within an oppressive and suppressive institution like the Catholic Church could relate to the body of works of the Nobel Prize for Literature honoree, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Furthermore, and more significantly, I think all those who perpetuate this oppression and suppression could learn, grow,…
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Yes, I say. I am going to trust the outcome regarding the ordination of women as deacons or as priests. How can I say that? First, Germany. The church there is in the midst of a “Synodal Path,” on which representatives of the clergy and the laity gather to discuss “power and checks and balances,”…
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I thought October 3, the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, should have been renamed Misogynistic Sunday, the 27th Sunday of “Extraordinary” Time. What a choice of readings! I was transported back to childhood listening to fairy tales, surely not written nor inspired by God, but by men. “Once upon a time” we had listened, so…
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“If you’re going to be a feminist on a hot planet, you have to be a climate feminist.” — Katharine K. Wilkinson, a co-author of the climate anthology “All We Can Save” The United Nations recent landmark climate report either terrified or inspired or managed to do both to all of us. Writing for the…
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The October issue of America is finally out: “Women in the Life of the Church.” Many of the articles are online already, but the overall impact surprises me because of one very strong article.  Jesuit editor Matt Malone’s writings about women always leave me lukewarm. His note in this issue says boldly: “we should always…
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Add some imagination to your concept of Church, I’ve argued with its hierarchy. Give something new, even radical, a chance. It just might save you. And, by the way, giving what we are doing to the environment, opening our minds in all areas might save us, too. So, let’s just do that and see what…
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As the young, lithe, graceful and seemingly grace-filled dancers circled, held hands, bent and raised and swayed their bodies, individually and communally lifted their arms and pranced their joy or crumbled and undulated their despair, ancient tunes and plaintive songs, Sephardic Judeo-Spanish “Ladino” phrases and rhythms and rousing and mournful solo violin and Ashkenazi klezmer…
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