WOC 2000 Plenary Talks

"If Roman Catholic women were ordained tomorrow..."
Genevieve Chavez, WOC National Coordinator

MILWAUKEE- A woman walked in late, so I met her at the door to welcome her "I can't believe I've found you. I can't believe there's really an organization that supports women's ordination in the Church. For years I've felt like some kind of weirdo, just because I KNOW I'm called to the priesthood, and no one understands it." Later, during a break I walked up to ask her how she was enjoying the conference. Tears welled up in her eyes and she started crying, "You don't know what this means to me..."

I had this encounter at the WOC 2000 conference, with a young, very lonely woman, who had never felt that her call was recognized, honored or accepted. On Nov. 3, women and men gathered for the celebration on WOC's 25th Anniversary at the WOC 2000 conference to do just that- to recognize, to honor and to accept women called by God to ordination.

WOC 2000 was a one day conference held at the Milwaukee Hilton, focusing on the "what if" question, "What If Roman Catholic Women were ordained tomorrow...?" Over 200 individuals came from around the US and from abroad to celebrate WOC's 25th anniversary and advance the dialogue about what if....

We started with an opening prayer service honoring those who had been at WOC conferences in the past, as well as welcoming all the new people. Then, in the morning plenary session, we listened to three very inspiring speakers. Sheila Briggs looked at the "what if" question from a theological perspective, Barbara Hilkert Andolsen addressed issues of race and class that will still plague the church after women are ordained, and Paula Nesbit offered advice after evaluating the situation of ordained Episcopal and Unitarian Universalist women.

After listening to the speakers we broke into small discussion groups and talked about the impact of their presentations, and what we could do to move this discussion forward. The energy was palatable and the interest was high. It's an issue that we want to continue to address.

During a delicious buffet lunch, WOC women from Milwaukee held a press conference and unveiled the WOC billboard. It was a real "Kodak moment." Many women in stoles stood up in solidarity to their personal call to priesthood.

In the afternoon, we had 10 breakout sessions. Each of these addressed the impact of women's ordination on various groups in the church including Catholics of color, women called to the priesthood, young Catholics, GLBT Catholics and small faith communities. Each breakout group came back to the entire group with a statement of what they hoped for in the future. These statements were read during the closing liturgy.

That evening we celebrated WOC's 25th Anniversary with a party honoring all the women who have done so much to further the cause of women's ordination. Without a doubt, it was an amazing and very successful day.