The Founding of the Young Feminist Network

Another major event occurred at the 1995 gathering. A group of over thirty young women, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five, met to share their ideas, frustrations, and hopes about WOC and the Catholic Church. The meeting was rife with energy and emotion, and it was the forerunner of what would soon be a program of WOC, the Young Feminist Network (YFN).

The young women at the meeting raised two main issues: wanting women’s ordination to be more integrated into not only their daily lives but their various faith communities, and the need for a stronger visible leadership presence of young women within the movement. Other issues included how to increase the presence of women of color, young women with children, and how, or if, to integrate supportive male friends. Some issues related to intergenerational work: how young women often feel patronized by older women, frustration at why they are sometimes valued for some obscure “future” contribution and anger at tokenism.

The participants called for a group in WOC that would provide a space for their creative vision and for these issues to be addressed. YFN became a reality in 1996 with very little money, and largely through the tireless efforts of then-WOC staffer, Kerry Danner-McDonald, who coordinated the program visioning, planning and fundraising for YFN. In the next few years, YFN grew, forming a leadership team, sponsoring retreats and leadership conferences for young women. While it was not required that YFN members be avid proponents of women’s ordination, many YFN women became enthusiastic supporters of the WOC agenda. Today, several of WOC’s recent or current board members were introduced to WOC through YFN. Furthermore, WOC’s office staff has been led by women in their 20’s and 30’s since 2003.

Also in 1996, Andrea Johnson became the National Coordinator of WOC, succeeding Ruth Fitzpatrick who led the organization for more than a decade. In 1992, Ruth Fitzpatrick led a trip to the Czech Republic to find Ludmila Javorova, one of the women who was ordained a priest in the underground Catholic Church of Communist Czechoslovakia. Five years later, Andrea Johnson and the WOC staff brought Javorova to the United States for private meetings with WOC groups and friends. In 2001, Miriam Therese Winter published Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmila Javorova, Ordained Roman Catholic Priest. Copies are available for purchase through the WOC office.

Another important result of the determination to grow the movement following the 1995 conference was the effort to meet with leaders of other women’s ordination groups from around the world at the first European Women’s Synod in 1996 in Gmunden, Austria. Attending to represent WOC was Andrea Johnson and Silvia Cancio, then-president of WOC’s board. The goal was to form an international coalition of like-minded groups to bring greater pressure to bear worldwide for women’s full inclusion in all ordained ministries of the church. Seventy-five women attended the organizing meeting. Representatives from six countries drew up an initial mission statement and charter—Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) was born. Andrea Johnson, as WOC’s executive director, served as the first coordinator of WOW, from July 1996-October 1998. Within six months of its founding, eleven countries were involved — within a year, fifteen countries; and within two years, 21 countries on all five inhabited continents including New Zealand! The age of e-mail had arrived; so much activism was possible with few resources and in swift time. WOW’s first international conference in Dublin, Ireland, in July of 2001 with 350 participants representing 26 countries, demonstrated handily that Catholic women around the globe were on the same page. They wanted women ordained, they wanted a renewed church and priesthood, and they wanted to work in partnership with men. Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, the keynote speaker, noted that there were only about 30 men present and charged the conference participants to come to the next conference with at least one man each. She made it clear that a renewed church with a renewed ministry was the business of both women and men.