What we learned in 2023
Here at the Women’s Ordination Conference, 2023 will be remembered as the year women voted for the first time at the Vatican.
The years-long effort for Votes for Catholic Women, spearheaded by WOC and partner reform organizations came to fruition this past October as 54 women voted inside the synod hall for the first (and certainly not the last) time.
But we are not naive about the challenges that lie ahead. Now more than ever we must attend to our mission for women’s full equality and the opening of all ordained ministries to people of all genders with fierce urgency.
Our ongoing witness, especially in the coming year, will be essential in ensuring our voices, experiences, and vocations are not further erased in the synodal process.
Please, join us in making a resolution for 2024 to be an uncompromising voice for the equitable inclusion of women at every level of our church by making a donation today.
As we continue to WOC the walk of the synodal path (in style!), we’re carrying with us the lessons of 2023: the well-earned truths of another year of activism, advocacy, and creativity.
We hope this list inspires you to partner with WOC on this journey and make an end-of-year gift to further empower our ministry. Thank you for your generosity!
Lessons from 2023:
Our stories belong. From the parish, to synod documents, to the Basilica of St. Praxedes in Rome, the testimonies of women should be and can be preached, proclaimed and amplified.
On the even of the Synod and steps away from the mosaic of Theodora epsicopa, we prayed together for courage, for persistence, and for the church to recognize the valid calls of women and people of all genders to ordained ministry.
The Spirit-filled gathering marked our commitment to the synodal process as hopeful people, willing partners in dialogue, courageous believers in the Holy Spirit.
And as the star of the summer—Barbie— said, “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you’ve robbed it of its power.”
The synodal tent must be big, open, and of course, purple. WOC members gathered in the sight of the Vatican as the Synod on Synodality opened, bearing our symbolic “tent” … a 12 meter-long purple banner, hand-painted by supporters from around the world. Our message: “enlarge the tent” to include the voices of those who support opening all ordained ministries to all genders.
Zoom is still in bloom! Virtual, feminist liturgies continue to be a meaningful source of connection and nourishment. Though Zoom fatigue is real, we have continued to create spaces for nourishing, inclusive liturgy that is a model of feminist prayer. These events are times to reconnect to the holy source that sustains our movement, rest, rejoice, and even lament. With guest preachers like Sr. Louise Lears, Leslye Colvin, and Cameron Bellm, we received the wisdom the institutional church so often fails to welcome from the mouths of women preachers.
Movements are ecosystems, where every part matters. Relaunched in 2023, the Wildflowers of the Grassroots is our network of committed and passionate advocates of ordination justice whose diverse gifts and efforts create a beautiful field in which our dreams of a renewed church can flourish.
We at WOC believe in a flexible, seasonal, and voluntary model of grassroots commitment. Whether you have 5 minutes a month or want to get involved on a regular basis, we celebrate it all.
These boots were made for ministry. On Vocations Sunday, WOC supporters called upon the institutional church to remember whose footprints are missing from ordained ministry and from the synodal path. From Long Beach to London, empty shoes were placed in public to symbolize those who have been shut out from ministry and leadership in the Catholic church.
We stand with our feet firmly planted in the truth that every authentic call from God, every priestly vocation, is gift and grace. And we will continue to walk along the prophetic edge with everyone who knows and celebrates this truth.
48 is great! The Women’s Ordination Conference commemorated its 48th anniversary November 17-19 with a virtual gala: “Synodality and the Fierce Urgency of Equality: The Call for Women’s Ordination Now.” (See our gala hub!)
Joined by Sr. Joan Sobala, Jane Varner Malhotra, Sr. Mary McGlone, Amirah Orozco, Flora X. Tang, Dr. Valerie Lewis-Mosley, Sr. Filo Hirota, Sheila Pires, Bernadette Raspante, Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, Shannon K. Evans, Ruby Almeida, Anne Soupa, Dr. Emily Reimer-Barry, Fr. Luigi Gioia, Lizzie Berne DeGear, Jamie Manson, Dianne Willman, Teresa Casillas Fiori, Jessica Gerhardt, Leslye Colvin… and so many of you!
Thank you for journeying with us with fierce urgency towards our “horizon of hope.”
The exclusion of women from ordained ministries impacts human rights and women’s empowerment efforts everywhere. As an NGO in consultative status with the UN, we work to counter the Vatican’s influence and the Holy See’s unholy efforts to thwart international gender justice policies, particularly at the Commission on the Status of Women meetings.
WOC hosted an official parallel event during the CSW67, on the far-reaching impact of gender inequality, especially for rural women and girls. And then cast a little shade nearby…
Our social media is making a difference. A growing number of our supporters first encounter WOC because of our social media efforts. We have a reputation as a source for timely, thoughtful, and beautiful content – ranging from responding to Vatican news, to explaining theological concepts, to some darn good memes that will make you laugh, laugh so you don’t cry, and certainly, make a point.
In an era where so much of what we do is mediated online, our social media presence is not trivial. It means we stake out a space in the ongoing conversation about reform in the church, advocating on every frontier we can.
The church has changed before and is changing today. For the first time ever, and as a result of coordinated grassroots pressure from WOC and our partners, women voted in the halls of the Vatican.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document allowing for the blessings of LGBTQ couples.
The call for opening ordained ministries to women was documented widely in synod reports around the world, and openly discussed at the Vatican during the synod in October—there is no turning back.
2024 will be a pivotal year and WOC, of course, has big plans. As we saw this past year, women’s ordination is the question of the hour at the synod, and our presence didn’t just make (a lot of!) headlines, it helped shape the agenda and conversations within the synod hall.
Without a doubt, 2024 will be another seminal year for our movement and the global church.
We have big plans to again witness in Rome, bringing our signature creative and unapologetic calls for women’s inclusion and ordination to the fore.
We need our community. You are our companions and co-conspirators, our good troublemakers and our spiritual support.
This work demands incredible faith and fortitude and we could not do it without you and the entire WOC community
While we take pride in our “small and mighty” organization, the reality is: We literally cannot do it without you. This is hard work, and it is no exaggeration to say that your prayers, your notes of encouragement, your solidarity, and your financial support keep us going.
Truly, thank you!