Archive for category Women in the Church
A daring hope for Catholic women / The Boston Globe
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Future of the Church, Synod on Synodality, Voice of the Faithful, Women, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on September 25, 2023
Catholic women are a cornerstone of their communities. However, there is currently no available path for women toward formal, vocational ministry within the church, despite the integral role many women play in fulfilling unmet ministerial needs of the community.
By Kelly Meraw, The Boston Globe
“Next month, Catholics from around the world will gather in Rome to discuss and discern the future of the Catholic Church. It is part of an ongoing church-wide conversation, known as the Global Synod on Synodality, about listening to the Holy Spirit and renewing the church as a healing presence in communities, particularly in places like Boston, shaken by the clergy sex abuse crisis.
“Catholics in the United States are invited to be part of that ongoing discernment process. Our participation is crucial for ensuring the conversation remains focused on the needs of all Catholics and how we continue to be a community in an increasingly diverse and connected world. Among the many questions that will be discussed at the synod is how we should rethink women’s participation in the church. It’s a question that will have a meaningful impact not only on the lives of Catholic women but on all Boston Catholics.
“Catholic women are a cornerstone of their communities. However, there is currently no available path for women toward formal, vocational ministry within the church, despite the integral role many women play in fulfilling unmet ministerial needs of the community. Those of us who feel a call from God to minister in sacramental ways (baptizing, celebrating marriages, funeral services) and to preach must be flexible in our approach.”
By Kelly Meraw, The Boston Globe — Read more …
The synod could change whether women can be ordained as deacons or priests. These women are hopeful / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, Pope Francis, Synod on Synodality, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on September 19, 2023
Discerning Deacons co-directors Ellie Hidalgo and Casey Stanton told NCR they would like to see proposals about women’s participation emerge from the October meetings, especially since the topic surfaced in listening sessions around the world.
By Heidi Schlumpf, National Catholic Reporter
“Advocates for women’s ordination — to the diaconate, the priesthood or both — say they are hopeful about the upcoming synod in Rome, despite some high-profile opposition to the possibility of expanded leadership opportunities for women in the church.”Advocates for women’s ordination — to the diaconate, the priesthood or both — say they are hopeful about the upcoming synod in Rome, despite some high-profile opposition to the possibility of expanded leadership opportunities for women in the church.
While they would like to see concrete proposals that increase women’s participation, those who spoke to NCR said they are also excited about the process of synodality itself and believe the Oct. 4-29 series of meetings will surface fruitful conversation and dialogue.
“My hope is in the commitment of all of us to be a synodal people,” said JoAnn Melina Lopez, director of faith formation at St. Basil Parish in Toronto, who will travel to Rome for a Sept. 30 ecumenical prayer vigil ahead of the synod. She will be part of a 17-member delegation of young adults affiliated with Discerning Deacons, a group that advocates for the restoration of women to the diaconate in the Catholic Church.
Documents summarizing two years of listening sessions in advance of the October series of meetings have included previously taboo topics, including women’s ordination, LGBTQ relationships, married priests and clergy sex abuse. In addition, for the first time in history, lay men and women will be included as full voting members of the synod.
By Heidi Schlumpf, National Catholic Reporter — Read more …
Editorial: Pope Francis, it’s time to release the women deacons report / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Pope Francis, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on September 18, 2023
The courageous young adults who took part in the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people pushed the 267 voting bishops at that assembly to say together that it was a “duty of justice” for the church to better include women in its all-male decision-making structures.
By National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff
“By all accounts, Pope Francis has had an eventful papacy.
“This first pope from the Americas has breathed new life into the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, refashioned the Vatican’s staid bureaucracy, and pushed the Catholic Church to focus on the needs of the environment and global peripheries.
“One especially interesting turn: Only 22 years after Pope John Paul II claimed the church had “no authority whatsoever” to ordain women as priests, Francis in 2016 created a first-of-its-kind papal commission to study the history of the ordination of women as Catholic deacons. Even more, in 2020, after that commission had wrapped up its work, the pope created another.
“For an institution known for thinking in terms of millennia, this is something akin to lightspeed. And Francis deserves special applause for listening to the voices of Catholic sisters, long neglected, or, worse, mistreated by the Vatican, who bravely asked him to create the first commission.
“What’s particularly frustrating, then, is the near-complete lack of transparency about the work of the commissions.”
By National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff — Read more …
I am a woman who serves like a deacon. Will I ever share St. Phoebe’s title? / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on September 5, 2023
In some places, there is hesitation to seek the intercession of St. Phoebe, a hesitance to recognize her as a deacon. We know that the deacons of today are not the same as the deacons of the first centuries. But why are we afraid of this dream of women received as deacons? Women like me are already doing such work — just without the title.
By marie Philomene Pean, National Catholic Reporter
“As a young girl growing up in Haiti, I remember feeling like I lived in a paradise as I rested easy in my mother’s lap. She and our community made me feel safe, loved and seen. It was not hard for me to come to know God as a loving mother who cares for all his children. I sensed that God knew me and called me by name to go out and proclaim his word.
“By the age of 8, I was serving as a lector in our parish, and by the age of 18 was leading retreats for the Legion of Mary and speaking to groups of all ages. I felt welcomed to share who I was and bring forth my gifts.
“I had a vision of Jesus when I was about 15 years old, seeing him as a handsome Black man who patiently asked me the same question he had asked Peter in John’s Gospel: “Do you love me?” (John 21:15-17). I sensed then that Jesus was asking for my whole life.
“It has not been a straightforward path. I came of age in the 1990s, when the clearest way for a woman to live a deeper call and commitment to the church was through religious life. I spent years discerning becoming a nun — first volunteering with a community of sisters, then entering as a novice.
“The regular prayer, sisterhood and studies was enlivening. But I struggled, especially when service to the church too closely looked like servanthood. There were real constraints that limited how we could develop our gifts and capacities as women.”
By Marie Philomene Pean, National Catholic Reporter — Read more …
Joy and hope amid struggle at Women of the Church event / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in church reform, Future of the Church, Synod of Bishops, Synod on Synodality, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful, Women, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on August 2, 2023
‘Because we’re living through it, we can fail to see how radical and exciting a time this is in the church,’ she (Kristin Colberg, associate professor of theology at St. John’s School of Theology and Seminary) said.
By Heidi Schlumpf, National Catholic Reporter
“At the third Women of the Church conference for Catholic women leaders, a morning prayer service began with a reading of the Gospel account of Mary of Magdala witnessing the resurrected Jesus outside the tomb. Participants were then asked to call out a word from the scripture passage that spoke to them. The most frequently shared word was ‘weeping.
“Catholic women have much to weep about, and many at the conference expressed pain, frustration and hurt by experiences of sexism in the church. But the overall vibe at the three-day event was one of joy and hope — brought on not only by the opportunity to pray, network and celebrate together, but also by optimism about the church’s upcoming synod on synodality and what it might mean for women’s leadership in the church.
“Keynote speaker Kristin Colberg set the tone the first night of the conference with her presentation titled ‘Fruit and Seed: New Roles for Women in a Synodal Church.’
“‘What’s happening with women in the church is not just the beginning of something new, but it’s the realization of something that’s already happening,’ said Colberg, associate professor of theology at St. John’s School of Theology and Seminary.”
By Heidi Schlumpf, National Catholic Reporter — Read more …
To reach and keep young Catholics, the church must recognize women’s leadership / Miami Herald
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in church reform, Future of the Church, Prophetic Voices, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on June 20, 2023
I co-direct Discerning Deacons, a project inviting Catholics to consider women’s inclusion in the permanent diaconate — an order that already includes married men ordained to serve in the life of the church.
By Ellie Hildago, Co-director of Discerning Deacons, in the Miami Herald
“Women play a vital role in passing on the faith to the next generation. But when 99% of Catholic churches will have a male preacher this Sunday in a world where 50% of the Catholic population are women, it’s time for our daughters and granddaughters — and sons and grandsons — to see us naming out loud a problem we’ve endured quietly in our hearts.
“What seemed normalized to my devout Catholic Cuban grandmothers, and became uncomfortable for my mother and has become unacceptable for me, is now unbearable for my nieces and many of our daughters. This will have untold consequences for the future of Catholic ministries.
“According to a report by the Pew Research Center, as of 2022, 43% of Hispanic adults identify as Catholic, down from 67% in 2010. In my work listening to older Hispanic/Latino Catholics in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere, I often hear how their children and grandchildren have become disengaged from their families’ long-standing, multigenerational Catholic faith. The loss of family unity feels enormous.”
By Ellie Hildago, Co-director of Discerning Deacons, in the Miami Herald — Read more …
My daughters have hard questions about the church. Are women deacons the answer? / America: The Jesuit Review
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on May 1, 2023
My kids, who are now teens, had been asking difficult questions, and I did not have good answers. They asked: ‘If God loves us all unconditionally, why doesn’t the church?
By Katie Mulcahy, America: The Jesuit Review
“Although I had attended Catholic school all my young life, I was never familiar with the concepts of synod, discernment and the diaconate. That was until last spring, when a friend invited me to her church for a Discerning Deacons event titled ‘Hope, Change and the Catholic Church.’ It was a cold Sunday evening, the Oscars were on, and I did not feel like driving across the city. But this is a friend who always shows up for me, so I went.
“Looking back on that evening, I believe it was the Holy Spirit who was nudging me to go. I had been feeling apathetic about my place in the church. My kids, who are now teens, had been asking difficult questions and I did not have good answers. They asked, ‘If God loves us all unconditionally, why doesn’t the church? Aren’t women and girls also made in the image of Christ?’ And here is a question that stopped me in my tracks: ‘If we value one group over another, aren’t we enabling oppression against the second group?’
“I attended the Discerning Deacons event with 700 other folks—men, women, teens, senior citizens, all looking for hope, professing their faith through song, prayer and sharing stories. We heard testimonies from women who have dedicated their lives to ministry and service in the church. One story really struck me: Casey Stanton, a co-director of Discerning Deacons and a woman with advanced degrees in divinity, felt called to serve in prison ministry. Because Ms. Stanton could not be ordained as a deacon in the Catholic faith, she was limited in how much she could minister to the female prisoners. I couldn’t help but wonder: Who else is restricted in their ministry because of the limitations put on women?”
By Katie Mulcahy, America: The Jesuit Review — Read more …
Catholic Church ‘robbed’ of richness of women deacons / The Tablet
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Voice of the Faithful, Women, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on April 26, 2023
From the twelfth century up to Vatican II, she (Dr. Phyllis Zagano) said the diaconate was essentially on hiatus and this ‘robbed the church of the richness of the charism.’
By Sarah Mac Donald, The Tablet
“The Catholic Church has been ‘robbed’ of the richness of women in the diaconate, according to a senior academic and author.
“Dr. Phyllis Zagano, adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University, said, ‘There is not now and never has been any doctrinal finding that women cannot be restored to the diaconate.’
“In her reflection on women and ministerial service in the Church at a Loyola Institute’s symposium: ‘A Servant Church on the Synodal Way,’ she said, ‘Women can receive the sacrament of order as deacons, just as they did for hundreds of years in the early Church.’
“Dr. Zagano has just launched her latest book, Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality and Women.
“From the twelfth century up to Vatican II, she said the diaconate was essentially on hiatus and this ‘robbed the church of the richness of the charism.'”
By Sarah Mac Donald, The Tablet — Read more …
Catholic women’s cries for change to be heard at the Vatican on International Women’s Day / University of Newcastle News
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Voice of the Faithful, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on March 6, 2023
The most extensive global survey of Catholic women ever undertaken, detailing experiences of women in the church, will be presented by Australian researchers in-person at the Vatican this International Women’s Day (March 8, 2023).
University of Newcastle News
‘The newly published International Survey of Catholic Women (ISCW) comprises more than 17,000 responses from participants across 104 countries.
‘Led by Drs. Tracy McEwan and Kathleen McPhillips from the University of Newcastle, Australia, the report details 20 key findings and further presents 14 key recommendations from the responses.
“‘The survey captured the complex diversity, insights, and shared concerns of thousands of Catholic women from around the world,’ Dr McEwan explained.
“‘We asked about identity, views on church reform and various issues impacting women, including women in church leadership and sexual abuse, among many other things.
“‘We found even when women have considerable struggles with Catholic institutions, nearly 90 per cent said their Catholic identity is important to them. Many continue to practice their faith despite significant concern, frustration and dissatisfaction with the institutional church,’ she said.”
By University of Newcastle News — Read more ...
Does the Catholic Church really believe women are people? / U.S. Catholic
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in church reform, Future of the Church, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on March 2, 2023
We cannot forget that “God created humankind in his image… male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). The imago dei implies, in fact, requires, a single-nature anthropology that recognizes male and female persons existing equally. Even canon law allows for this fact with the first canon in the section describing the rights and duties of the Christian faithful …
By Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D., U.S. Catholic
“It can seem simplistic to say that the life and dignity of people within the Church begins with baptism and must be respected. But when the Church makes statements that imply or directly state that women cannot image Christ, the Risen Lord, there is much to be criticized.”It can seem simplistic to say that the life and dignity of people within the Church begins with baptism and must be respected. But when the Church makes statements that imply or directly state that women cannot image Christ, the Risen Lord, there is much to be criticized.
“While it may seem incomprehensible in current times to say that women cannot—do not—image Christ, this is the bedrock of the argument that women cannot receive sacramental ordination. The implications of this statement or belief are enormous. Its errors are equally enormous.
“To begin with, men and women are ontologically equal. That is, all human beings, all persons, are equal before God. Because they are equal—male and female—one cannot be subordinated to the other. While history is rife with heretical statements of ontological subordination, their existence and expulsion from Church teaching supports the essential point that men and women, while not the same, are equal.”
By Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D., U.S. Catholic — Read more …
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