Author: Kate McElwee

Gospel Growing Wild: Join WOC in Washington, DC this May

Gospel Growing Wild: Friday, May 10 @ 5:30 – 7 pmBook talk and wine reception with Lizzie Berne DeGear, PhD. Join WOC for an evening of conversation with feminist Biblical scholar Lizzie Berne DeGear, PhD, who will discuss her inspiring new book Jesus Found in Translation, and the good news growing wild in each of us.…
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Synod Listening Sessions: Interim Stage 2024

Join WOC for a listening session during the interim stage of the Synod on Synodality. We will reflect on the synodal process thus far and engage with the “Conversation in the Spirit” model to go even deeper into the discernment needed in this moment. All are welcome. Register below: If you are unable to attend either session,…
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Women’s Ordination Conference responds to final document of Pope Francis’ October 2023 Synod on Synodality

For Immediate Release: October 28, 2023 Following the month-long 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican, the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) expresses its support for the ways in which the need for the greater participation of women in the pastoral life and governance of the church…
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WOC’s Kate McElwee on CNN This Morning

WOC Executive Director, Kate McElwee appeared on CNN This Morning on Sunday, August 8th 2023 to discuss Pope Francis’ far-right critics and what makes them so nervous about the upcoming Synod on Synodality. Watch the interview:

Save the date for WOC’s 48th

This November (17-19), the Women’s Ordination Conference will commemorate our 48th anniversary with a virtual gala and auction: “Synodality and the Fierce Urgency of Equality: The Call for Women’s Ordination Now.” Our theme refers to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic phrase, “the fierce urgency of now,” which he spoke of on August 28th, 1963…
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Washington Post: Ruth Fitzpatrick, who fought to ordain female priests, dies at 90

“We will not accept men telling women they can’t be priests because that’s the way God wants it,” Ms. Fitzpatrick once said. “She does not!” Ruth M. Fitzpatrick, a prominent and fierce advocate for the ordination of women as priests who called the Catholic Church “the last of the sexist institutions,” died June 15 at…
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New York Times: Ruth Fitzpatrick, Crusader for Letting Women Be Priests, Dies at 90

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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NCR: The Vatican’s synod document is good. But how long must women wait?

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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NCR: The Vatican’s synod document is good. But how long must women wait?

“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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WOC Finds Hope in New Working Document of the Synod on Synodality

For Immediate Release: June 20, 2023 The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) finds hope in the Vatican’s document released June 20 that will guide discussions for the Synod of Bishops this October. Known as the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, the text invites discernment on the urgent needs of the church today, including ways to recognize…
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