Women’s Ordination Conference at the United Nations
Since 2019, the Women’s Ordination Conference has been an NGO in consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). As our announcement on the achievement said, having consultative status is a huge step in our advocacy for women’s equality, as it offers us a platform to influence decision-makers at the highest levels by delivering statements, participating in negotiations and meetings, and holding side events at the UN.
In July 2021, the statement we submitted to the high-level ECOSOC meeting was published.
CSW68
March 19, 2024
Catholic Theologies: Religious Institutions, Poverty, and Violations of Women’s Rights
You can listen to the full audio of the session with
WOC executive director Kate McElwee, Barbara Anne Kozee, Sr. Mary McGlone CSJ, and Dr. Christiana Zenner. The panel explored the relationship between global poverty faced by women and the role of Catholic theologies in addressing or perpetuating this reality.
Why be at the UN?
Other than the ability to consult on human rights issues, why is it so important that organizations like WOC, specifically, have a voice at the United Nations? The answer has a lot to do with the Vatican’s unholy influence in the same space.
The Holy See at the U.N. (and its unholy influence)
The Vatican enjoys a privileged status as a Non-Member State Permanent Observer at the United Nations, and it too often uses this status to block international agreements and policies that affect women’s rights and health. While many Catholics may not be aware of the privileged status the Vatican enjoys —nor their ironic obsession with gender and women’s rights—we at WOC know this is not a harmless quirk of history. The report linked below details the Holy See as a “state,” their non-compliance with UN treaties, case studies in human rights violations, and an overview of the Holy See and the Catholic Church’s obstructionist role as an anti-women’s rights actor and its unholy alliances.
Read the report
Catholics for Human Rights
We offer a powerful Catholic voice as a counter to the Holy See at the United Nations. We challenge their legitimacy as a state-actor and have filed an official complaint with the United Nations as to why an institution that does not practice gender equality should have any place at a UN meeting on women’s rights.
Read the complaint
Climate and Gender Justice: March 25, 2022
WOC’s contribution to CSW66 was an intersectional panel on climate and gender justice with:
* Amanda Baugh, CSU Northridge
* Sharon Bong, Monash University Malaysia
* Stephanie Cherpak Clary, Earthbeat
* Teresia Hinga, Santa Clara University
* Chanelle Robinson, Boston College
65th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women
March 15-26, 2021
This March, the UN Commission on the Status of Women will host its 65th session, most of it virtually. This year’s priority theme is “women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life.” WOC will be hosting/ co-hosting three events, and you can read more about each below!
March 16, 2021 @ 11 a.m. eastern
Challenging Institutional Catholicism and “New Feminism” through Latinx Empowerment
For the past two years, we held listening sessions with Spanish-speaking Catholics in the U.S., a group marginalized by gender, language, and xenophobia. The Church attempts to appeal to these women through a proposal called, “New Feminism,” which is an effort to rebrand feminism to appeal to an ever-secularizing society.
It is a dangerous extension of the Church’s suppression of women’s rights and a misuse of human rights language. This session will untangle the Church’s lip service to women and suggest a path toward equality by centering the stories of mujerista theologians, human rights experts, and lay Catholics.
March 17, 2021 @ 11 a.m. Eastern
Women’s Exclusion from Catholic Leadership Threatens Human Rights
This forum will analyze the governance, laws, and relevant theologies of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, and the ways they contradict human rights norms through a manipulation of tradition and androcentric, oppressive practices. An institution with all-male leadership is a severely compromised ally for women worldwide. With a particular focus on how such governance structures and its global influence threaten women’s social protections, social services, and freedom from violence, this session will bring experts, canon lawyers, and theologians to unknot the complex tapestry of sexism within the Church and suggest a path forward to faithfully advance human rights.
Watch the event recording
March 22, 2021 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern
“Dignity” in Diplomacy: How the Catholic Church Fails Women Globally
This forum gathers Catholic theologians and experts to spotlight the Catholic Church’s misappropriation of the international human rights concept of “dignity”, drastically limiting the participation and leadership of women in the economy and society.
Rooted in deeply patriarchal concepts, the Church’s diminished vision of women’s “dignity” is at work in its own failed leadership, which prohibits women from decision-making authority, and is pervasive in the Holy See’s diplomatic efforts around the world. By co-opting human rights language to further inequality, the Catholic Church denies women moral agency, threatens their access to healthcare, and limits opportunities for social and civil empowerment.
Past Event Highlights
March 2020 International Women’s Day March to the U.N.
In honor of International Women’s Day and just before New York City shut down because of the COVID-19 crisis, we marched from the United Nations to the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, singingour version of “Bread and Roses,” a classic of the labor movement.
“When a woman walks through the doors of a Catholic Church, the institution denies her the rights she has in civil society, all in the name of ‘God’s will’,” said Kate McElwee, our executive director. “We must not sacralize gender discrimination. It is not God’s will to marginalize, silence, and disempower women — it is the work of a powerful patriarchy.”
Our witness at the UN was to continue with that month’s scheduled Commission on the Status of Women, but the gathering was cancelled due to the quickly escalating COVID-19 crisis.
Catholics for Human Rights at the 2019 Commission on the Status of Women
In 2019, we joined other Catholic groups for a series of events highlighting the history and influence of the Holy See at the United Nations, and asserting the need for groups like ours to provide witness at the United Nations as a countering Catholic voice.
The events examined the effects of the Vatican on human rights-related policy and presented a case for the removal of the Holy See from the CSW, as well as its special privilege as a Nonmember State Permanent Observer. As one lawyer who was part of the event said, “the Church’s status at the United Nations is not a harmless fiction.”
