“And, historically, that’s actually a precondition for women ascending to power. Can they seize the moment?”  This headline on Alexis Grenell’s column in the print edition of The Nation attracted my attention immediately. She quotes New York State Senator Allesandra Biaggi: “We’ve got to move on past talking about the bad behavior of below-average men.”…
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[Editor’s Note: While our blogger Ellie is away on a much-deserved vacation, we’ll be hearing from some other voices on Tuesdays. Today, in honor of Pride Month, is the Pride poem written by our staff member, Katie!]

[Editor’s Note: This post was scheduled at 12 PM Eastern on Friday, June 18th; see a postscript from Regina after the results at the end.] I am in the odd position of finishing this on Friday morning for publication Saturday. I want to write about the bishops’ decision on a proposal to draft a document…
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Do we have the potential of taking up too much space, we women and other-gendered? Are they afraid we would crowd them out or hem them in with the weight of our untapped wisdom?  The volume of our unheard words?  The massiveness of our ignored resources? The expansiveness of the fresh perspectives and renewed spirit…
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When I woke up Thursday morning, I was going to write how sad I was that Cardinal Reinhold Marx of Germany was resigning. When I was making breakfast, I heard on the BBC that Pope Francis had refused his resignation. What! Is that possible only in the church?  Our good leaders must not resign, which…
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It is official. It is now ‘codified’ into church law: “A person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order,” will receive automatic excommunication.  Most of the news services used variations on these words: “While the church has for centuries banned women from…
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On April 30, 2021, my colleague Ellie Harty, co-editor of Equal wRites (the publication of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference), asked me to write an article on the 2022 Vatican Synod. I agreed. On May 21, 2021, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has changed the date of the Synod to October 2023 and…
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I raised my children with carrots only, no sticks. It’s not that I was so patient, kind, and lofty. I simply could not physically – or, a bit less successfully, emotionally – hurt someone. I was also a devotee of Dr. Spock’s assertion that hitting a child teaches the child that when you’re angry, hit.…
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A perfect theme for Memorial Day weekend. This is the title of an exhibit at the New Museum in New York City. It closes June 6, a week and a day from today. I am very grateful for a late review by Clifford Thompson in Commonweal that got me there last weekend. If I had…
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When facing the major crises of our lives today, do you find yourself asking the same question over and over: But what can I do? Of course, organizations or groups working to resolve the crises often give us the same easy answer: “Donate”.  And we do. And perhaps that truly is what has the most…
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