Category: Guest Post

I don’t know. Maybe it was just the impact of the Harvey Weinstein and so many other revelations, and the “Me, Too” reactions, that finally opened my eyes to a “passive harassment” that happens each time at our very own Mass. Hopefully you are farther along in awareness than I sometimes tend to be, but…
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I’m thinking about leadership in the in the Roman Catholic Church because of a few recent articles. In my academic life, I taught that there are those who have earned leadership and those who merely fulfill appointed roles. Maybe the absence of national political leadership makes us more aware of who our real leaders are.…
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Note: In honor of the upcoming Roman Catholic Women Priests episcopate ordinations on October 1st, the Table will run a feature post on both Suzanne Thiel and Jane Via this week. This is the second installment. WOC celebrates this milestone for the RCWP community.  I’ve known Jane Via for 38 years. There was a group of…
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Note: In honor of the upcoming Roman Catholic Women Priests episcopate ordinations on October 1st, the Table will run a feature post on both Suzanne Thiel and Jane Via this week. This is the first installment. WOC celebrates this milestone for the RCWP community.  You may think of Roman Catholic bishops as stern or stuffy;…
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I was in my late teens when I first read the life of Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), a gift book from a devoted aunt who sought to encourage vocations in all her nephews and nieces. It is hard to explain my subsequent fascination with this French nun who died of consumption at age 24 without…
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The following are excerpts from an interview between WOC executive director, Kate McElwee (KM) and Cindi “Sam” Bowns (SB) first published in the Spring 2017 issue of New Women, New Church. Sam has discerned a vocation to the diaconate and advocates for the restoration of ordained women deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. A PDF version…
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In today’s Gospel Jesus teaches the disciples how to seek reconciliation. This is clearly something the disciples needed, and something that our world, and each of us gathered here need today. Many of us here are seeking reconciliation, because our brother has sinned against us. Our Mother Church has sinned against us. Jesus says “If…
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As Pope Francis begins his trip to Colombia (6-11 September 2017), we share this 2013 article from our journal, New Women, New Church, by Colombian woman priest Olga Lucia Álvarez Benjumea, ARCWP. I’ve been discovering that ever since I was a very young girl, without much awareness back then, that the Divine has always guided me with kindness and…
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Without question, the subject of this amazing book, Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, is the most influential woman of the 20th century, whom we know the least about! Pauli Murray was a lawyer who worked on the most powerful civil rights legislation of her day, was affiliated with the ACLU, the EEOC, National…
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I am not sure how it started – curiosity, maybe. But I got it in my mind to visit women clergy in my town. I guess I have wanted to see what it would be like to see a woman pastor in action. After all, in my path to this moment, the ordination of Episcopal…
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