YFN Elects Leadership and Sets Issue Agenda:

Young Feminist Catholics Make Difficult Decisions about Future

The stunning landscape of the Leaven Center in Lyons, Mich. served as the setting for the Young Feminist Network (YFN) National Leadership and Organizing Retreat on January 20-22, 2006 with the theme, “Celebrating Ten Years of the Spirit at Work in Catholic Reform.”

An intentionally diverse group of twelve Catholic women participated in the retreat, with six women of color and at least six women called to a renewing priestly ministry. The purpose of the retreat was to celebrate YFN’s tenth anniversary and to solidify our foundation for the next ten years and beyond. To do this, we revised our mission and vision statements, created the first draft of the YFN Issue Agenda, participated in an anti-oppression workshop, and elected a new leadership team. We also prepared our meals together, opened and closed each day with prayer, studied the Bible, and celebrated Mass on Sunday morning.

On Friday night, after our welcome and orientation, we built an altar, which Carmen Lane created in the center of our circle of chairs. We each placed an item we brought from home on the altar and described how it symbolized our identity as young feminist Catholics. After a community building exercise and closing prayer, we adjourned to slumber, eager to commence the weekend’s events.

On Saturday, we wrote issue statements for our five most important issues (these had been gathered from the retreat applications). Together, the issue statements created the first draft of YFN’s Issue Agenda, which will be finalized on the YFN online community and circulated broadly afterward. Later that day, our Bible study enabled us to incorporate our faith into the issues we discussed, including elements from the anti-oppression workshop and the Issue Agenda conversations. It also prepared us for the difficult conversation that would come later.

That evening, while we revised YFN’s mission and vision statements (see adjacent box), the question of whether or not to include men as members of YFN arose. An intense, ninety-minute conversation ensued, and we came to consensus that YFN members will be young Catholic women, so national programming, including the online community, is for women and female-identified persons in our 20’s and 30’s only. Local activists and groups can decide the role they want for allies, including men and older women.

While many of the participants did not initially agree to this decision, it was made clear that we need to create a more intentionally safe space for young Catholic women to heal our wounds and develop our leadership skills, since there is no other group or outlet for us to do so. This point was made specifically around the fact that we need to build trusting relationships with each other, especially as women of different ethnicities and cultures.

As a predominantly white organization, the entire group has been hindered from fulfilling its mission by the racism and internalized superiority complexes, however unconscious or unintentional, of its white members. It was clear that we have a lot of work to do within ourselves as women, and it would be easier to engage our differences and deal with our issues around racism, classism, and all forms of oppression without adding the extra dimension of male participation. We cannot change the church—or anything at all—until we change ourselves.

During the conversation, some were frustrated that we were spending a lot of time on this topic when we had so much work to do as Catholic women working for renewal in our church. At the same time, others felt the conversation was needed because there were major differences of opinion. While an agreement was reached, it was not without controversy, and in retrospect most would agree that the conversation was beneficial at least as an exercise in consensus building.

After reporting this decision to the national YFN online community a few weeks after the retreat, one woman removed herself from the list and three other members asked for a more complete explanation of the decision. When the leadership team discussed it over a conference call, we decided to respond. We also decided to create an email group for allies of YFN, and to send updates on our activities and resources. In creating “Friends of YFN,” we emphasize that we are not excluding allies from all aspects of YFN—we are making our online community more intentional as a discussion forum for young women.

Concerning her experience at the retreat, Lauren Ivory said, “It was amazing to share time and energy with other young Catholic feminist women and to talk about our common struggles and hopes. It gave me renewed energy to work on issues when I got home, and it also gave me the courage to call myself a Catholic feminist more often. By doing this, I am able to assert that part of my identity more often and it has been really helpful for my self awareness."

We accomplished the goals of the retreat in the brief but bountiful weekend at the Leaven Center. With ten years experience and an enthusiastic, diverse leadership team, YFN has made its mark and we are here to stay!

Nancy Olivas lives in Los Angeles, Calif. and has been an active YFN and WOC member for two years. Aisha S. Taylor serves as WOC’s Executive Director and former Coordinator of Young Feminist Network.