Category: Ministry of Walking with Women Called

The other week I attended a one man play called How I Learned What I Learned. Autobiographical, the play’s “one man” was the playwright himself, and the drama focused on his growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of racially divided Pittsburgh. He took us on a journey through his life, loves, poetic and…
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Why is it that only the “no” votes matter? That change can be put off because not everybody agrees? Not to decide is to decide, the mantra of Pope Francis when it comes to us. Once again, women are revealed as the third rail of the church. You’ll be executed if you touch it, so…
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A church community in Greenwich Village in New York City recently hosted an art installation. One of the “pieces” was a makeshift confessional. It was painted white and softly curtained. A screen cutout in decorated shapes both beautifully welcomed and separated speaker and listener. Those entering were not there to “confess” in any traditional sense.…
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Last year, I was asked to write a poem for Women’s History Month to be read at Mass, and the priest actually let me read this!  As we close out March and begin April, that month of rebirth, I offer you this:  A Church for Our Daughters Would it be stone-clad?With some rocks left overFor…
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If you have not read Alice McDermott’s latest book, The Ninth Hour, I urge you to run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore, library, or e-book download! Beautifully written, unsentimentally poignant, compelling and affecting, it actually makes you proud to be Catholic just based on what so many nuns in the past have been doing…
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On a recent February Sunday at Mass, we celebrated Black History Month. Our pastor, who is Caucasian, donned colorful, African-inspired vestments. After the welcome and gathering, he went down to the aisle and called forth two of the parish’s African-American elders. A tall woman and tall man in African garb joined their hands over him…
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I have wanted to write about seminaries for a long time, but there always seems to be something else. Then this week, NCR announced a series to answer these questions: “How are priests being formed? Who is teaching them? How are seminaries adapting to the new wave of abuse crises and condemnation of clericalism from…
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How rich the Church would be if only the blessed gifts outlined by poet, Jan Richardson below – and so many, many more that you could name – from all genders – were permitted. I’m not telling you here anything you don’t already know, but sometimes, I think, in this week of the celebration of…
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Sometimes it’s just better to be simple, to state the obvious, in this week before the celebration of the birth of Christ:  We all remember and rejoice that, within her self on that great birth day, Mary literally transubstantiated bread and wine into body and blood to create her son – many believe – the…
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As we protest and/or witness against the Church we have, I like to keep before us the Church we want: one, needless to say, with a multi-gendered approach to ministry and new possibilities for reaching people. I would like to start “small” by describing one way our small Eucharistic community does just this. This particular…
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