In the News

By Emma Cieslik This past April, the Pew Research Center shared that 54 percent of U.S. Catholics believe the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples. The data affirmed that 2024 was ripe for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church, but the timing—the report released just one week after the Vatican’s Dignitas Infinita document denouncing gender-affirming…
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Pope Francis twice said “no” to the possibility of ordaining women deacons in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired on Paramount Plus last night. Some advocates of women’s ordination both to the priesthood and to the diaconate have questioned whether the pope’s “no” on a topic that is still under study has undermined…
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This Religion News Service report features an interview with WOC Executive Director, Kate McElwee: “It’s a very sad day when a powerful man like a pope tells a young girl that they will never be equal in their own church and will never be able to follow their call from God.” Read the full interview…
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By Florence Gaillard In October 2023, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, women were allowed to participate in and vote at the Synod of Bishops, a religious gathering that had previously been reserved only for bishops. The landmark event came amid calls from feminists in many countries for the ordination…
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By Heidi Schlumpf As the delegates to the Synod on Synodality met in Rome for the first day of the month-long summit to determine the future of the Catholic Church, down the street several dozen women held a gathering of their own. Representing four continents and dressed in episcopal purple, the women unfurled a giant…
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By Katie Collins Scott On Oct. 3, 2018, as bishops and cardinals entered the Vatican to participate in the Synod of Bishops on young people, a group peacefully protested the fact that no women would be allowed to vote at the international gathering.  Standing outside the Palace of the Holy Office, near where the synod members…
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By Brian FragaStaff Reporter The 41-page synthesis report for the Synod of Bishops on Synodality disappointed several progressive Catholics and others who advocate for the Catholic Church to rethink its approach to issues such as the clergy sex abuse crisis, LGBTQ ministry, women’s roles in the church and the possibility of ordaining women to the…
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 Footnote spoke with WOC executive director, Kate McElwee. She stated that her organization was actively and faithfully engaged, encouraging broad and hopeful participation of women in the process, “despite the Vatican’s minimal credibility to truly listen to women’s voices, vocations and concerns.” Read the full article (in Spanish) here.

BY NICOLE WINFIELD VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ big gathering of Catholic bishops and laypeople said Saturday it was “urgent” to guarantee fuller participation of women in church governance positions and called for research on allowing women to be deacons to be released within a year. But the meeting didn’t take decisive action on that issue, and…
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The pontiff carefully examines the badge hanging from a lady’s neck. She managed to find her way to Francis, seated at one of the many round tables set up in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. She whispers a word in his ear. Other women, countless, young and old, secular and religious, surround the pope. Two men and…
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