In the News

Ruth Fitzpatrick, who felt she was called to the Roman Catholic priesthood beginning as a teenager and later helped lead a movement to press the church to stop barring women like her from being ordained, died on June 15 in Fairfax, Va. She was 90. The cause was cerebral arteriosclerosis, her son John Fitzpatrick said.…
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Kate McElwee contributed this piece to the National Catholic Reporter on the Instrumentum Laboris for the upcoming Synod on Synodality. And while I will not discount the value and affirmation that comes from a Vatican process or document capturing the experiences of women with a semblance of depth, we simply must journey together beyond words.…
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“And while I will not discount the value and affirmation that comes from a Vatican process or document capturing the experiences of women with a semblance of depth, we simply must journey together beyond words. If we are to take up the challenge of “missionary urgency” the synod must listen to and walk with those…
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Church reform groups and theologians say they are finding hope in the new Vatican document setting the stage for the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October, even as many harbor reservations or skepticism about the possible outcomes of the synod itself. The document, released June 20, mentioned many topics previously considered taboo in similar high-level conversations,…
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Pope Francis says women will be allowed to vote on a Vatican panel that had been exclusively male. NPR’s Scott Simon asks Kate McElwee of the Women’s Ordination Conference about it.

The latest move, however, represents a welcome, if long overdue, step in the right direction, a “significant crack in the stained glass ceiling,” as Kate McElwee director of the Women’s Ordination Conference put it.Read the full editorial here.

Theologians and Catholic Church reform groups are praising Pope Francis’ decision to expand participation in the upcoming Synod of Bishops on synodality to include laypersons as full, voting members for the first time. In NCR interviews after the Vatican’s announcement of the change on April 26, several prominent experts characterized the move as a substantial development…. …The Vatican’s decision…
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Rome (CNN) — Pope Francis will allow women to participate and vote for the first time at an upcoming meeting of Catholic bishops in October. The meeting, known as a synod, normally only allows bishops to vote. Pope Francis on Wednesday approved guidelines that will expand participation and voting to include lay people and women…. …The US-based Women’s Ordination Conference advocates…
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Dozens of women will be allowed to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops, Pope Francis has decided, in a landmark move aimed at broadening female and laypeople voices in the male-exclusive life of the Catholic Church. … …“This is a significant crack in the stained glass ceiling, and the result of sustained advocacy, activism…
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Women will be allowed to vote at a key meeting for Catholics, the Synod of Bishops, for the first time in October after a decision by Pope Francis. The pope’s changes were announced Wednesday through the Vatican’s news website. They represent a “significant crack in the stained glass ceiling,” Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s…
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