Tag: women’s ordination

Beginning on Saturday, October 6th, 1979, on the eve of the last day of Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States, members of the Women’s Ordination Conference held an all-night vigil in Washington, D.C. They were there to greet the pope as he arrived to conduct Mass at the National Shrine of the…
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It seems almost surgical, the excision of women’s ordination from the conversation. This week, when I watched the BBC documentary “The Women Fighting to be Priests” on YouTube, I was thrilled with the stories of two Roman Catholic Women Priests, Fr. Anne and Olga Lucia Alvarez. Then Kate McElwee of WOC calmly presents the Vatican situation,…
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Coming into this position of being an intern for the Women’s Ordination Conference and taking part in being a blog editor, I was excited yet nervous. I will admit that my knowledge of certain topics in Catholic news was hazy. This sparked the nervousness I felt in the beginning. However, that soon changed. The more…
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“Francis is Stuck. Let me count the ways.” That was my first title for this blog. I saw no change in what he said to a gathering of people who work at America magazine. Deliberately diverse, the group posed questions one after another. Executive editor Kerry Weber was third and set up her first question:…
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Author’s note: I initially wrote this piece in September 2019, in response to the article referenced in thefirst paragraph below. The “spousal metaphor” is back in Catholic news after yesterday’s interview with Pope Francis in America Magazine, in which he exploited the metaphor to dismiss the sincerely discerned vocations of women to the priesthood. Given…
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When it comes to advocating for the advent of women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, the theological and moral reasoning extend far beyond the concept that we should allow ordination because it has occurred in the past. But there is evidence to support this reasoning in the figure of Saint Brigit of Kildare. Saint…
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Jane Varner Malhotra and Lizzie Berne DeGear are both members of WOC, and this summer we were introduced to each other by Kate McElwee just before heading to Mexico City on pilgrimage with Discerning Deacons. A few zoom calls in the weeks before the trip had us bonding on everything from questions over what to…
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Doors are cracking open. Forbidden topics (Women’s ordination!) are open for discussion. As the just newly released Vatican document says in so many words: ”Spaces in our tents are enlarging!” I am going to resist the temptation to say an exasperated ”finally!” and jump to celebration instead. It’s early days, of course. Nothing “magisterial” has…
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Kate McElwee strikes exactly the right note in her letter to WOC members on Thursday: “We have reached a touchstone moment on the synodal path, and thanks to your efforts, women’s ordination is still a major part of the conversation,” except I would emphasize “thanks to your efforts.” So many people who support women’s ordination showed…
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In the Roman Catholic Church, feminist theologian and scholar, Rosemary Radford Ruether, was a prophetic pillar. She shares the same status as the early church Fathers—Origen, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Cassian, and St. Augustine; Women Doctors of the Church—St. Hildegard von Bingen, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Ávila, and St. Thérèse de Lisieux; and well-known…
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