Pope Francis twice said “no” to the possibility of ordaining women deacons in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired on Paramount Plus last night. Some advocates of women’s ordination both to the priesthood and to the diaconate have questioned whether the pope’s “no” on a topic that is still under study has undermined…
Read more
This Religion News Service report features an interview with WOC Executive Director, Kate McElwee: “It’s a very sad day when a powerful man like a pope tells a young girl that they will never be equal in their own church and will never be able to follow their call from God.” Read the full interview…
Read more
For Immediate Release: May 21, 2024 During a wide-ranging CBS television interview with journalist Norah O’Donnell aired on May 20, Pope Francis rejected the possibility of women serving as ordained deacons or as members of the clergy. When asked by O’Donnell if a young Catholic girl ever would ever have the opportunity to be a…
Read more
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.…
Read more
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,…
Read more
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…
Read more
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:
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…
Read more
“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…
Read more
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.…
Read more
