Category: Ministry of Walking with Women Called

I’m still held in thrall by the “ministry of encouragement” and by the challenge to envision what a Church that includes full priesthood and leadership of women might look like. I know many have talked and written of possible visions, but I’d like to add one from a church already functioning. Of course, yes, it…
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I think you are going to love this. One of our members presented it at our annual Southeast Pennsylvania chapter of WOC full day retreat last week. It is a quote from the book, Holy Rascals, by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. (The book’s title alone enthralls me as does being able to quote such a wise…
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[Editors’ note: Lisa Cathelyn is a 2017 awardee of the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship for Women Discerning Priestly Ordination. This is the last of three in a series of reflections from our 2017 awardees on how the scholarship impacted their journey over the academic year.] Emboldened. When I reflect on my final year at a…
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I am extremely grateful for the support of Women’s Ordination Conference and the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship this past year. As I struggled to complete my last year of my M.Div studies it meant a great deal to have this financial support, and to know that there are many people who are supporting me in…
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[Editors’ note: Sarah Holst is a 2017 awardee of the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship for Women Discerning Priestly Ordination. This is the first of three in a series of reflections from our 2017 awardees on how the scholarship impacted their journey over the academic year.] There is a story in Revelations about a portent of…
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When I started writing on this blog last fall, I asked Google Alerts to let me know when anything relevant to women’s ordination or women in the Catholic Church was posted online. In the beginning, I got articles from publications I never heard of before, and most of them opposed any change in the role…
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Few church leaders embraced Vatican II like Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, who as a young bishop attended all four conciliar sessions and returned to the U.S. with a prophetic vision for implementing the Council’s teachings. Sadly, he passed away earlier this week at age 96. Hunthausen advocated for oppressed persons everywhere. He protested nuclear weapons as…
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Doesn’t this say it all? In a recent Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, a reader, commenting on a Ross Douthat take on Pope Francis as a way too progressive and, therefore, dangerous leader, included this anecdote: He and some of his fellow students at an all-male Catholic high school had noted…
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Okay, I’m a grandma, so please bear with me! I think this grandchild-being-irresistably-funny anecdote does have a point for us. No, trust me, really. My two year old grandson was being potty trained and doing quite well, thank you. One day, he and his family were at a restaurant. Mom denied him some treat and…
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With all respect to Neil Diamond, not to mention God, what magnificent words! Easter words. In the Old Testament, it is God, in defining God’s self, who says, “I AM” or I AM THAT I AM. How did those words, along with so many others in our scriptural readings, become twisted into statements of ultimate,…
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