Author: Kate McElwee

In the beautiful Teatro Argentina around one hundred people, including actress Nancy Brilli and Cardinal Ravasi gathered to experience the production of the Pontifical Council for Culture and RAI tv’s collaboration on “Women’s Cultures” (#LifeofWomen). Videos and live-testimonials crowd-sourced over the ill-timed week of December 23 – January 4, were broadcasted for the first time…
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The Working Group on the Collaboration of Men and Women in Ministry is a small but mighty group organized by the Justice and Peace, and the integrity of Creation (JPIC) promoters. Last weekend nearly one hundred people (mostly sisters) attended a seminar organized by the group with Catholic theologian, Marinella Perroni, Professor of New Testament at…
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In a connection that Roman Catholic woman priest, Diane Dougherty fostered, (she described the serendipitous networking as feeling “like Mary and Elizabeth… a baby is jumping in my womb……maybe all of ours”), I had the opportunity to sit down with Forbes writer, Cathy Huyghe on her recent trip to Rome. Cathy is a dynamic woman…
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In a two-part series, “Psalms in Latin American Feminist Perspectives,” theologian Mercedes Garcia Bachmann of Buenos Aires, Argentina, brought a slice of feminist hermeneutics to the Faculta Valdese di Teologia, and unintentionally, a sliver of understanding to Pope Francis’ “blindspot.” Bachmann began her presentation by noting that many biblical scholars and teachers in Latin America are often…
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I recently came across an article by an Italian theologian, Lilia Sebastiani, “Chiesa, ciò che manca alla parità,” where she describes why ordained ministry is important in the Roman Catholic Church: “Non perché io consideri il ministero ordinato così centrale nella prospettiva redenta,” but because Jesus did not intend to prioritize one community over the…
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The Pontifical Council for Culture and the Vatican’s “Women’s Consultation Group” launched a video campaign asking women: “who you are, what you do, what you think about your being a woman, your strengths, your difficulties, your body, and your spiritual life.”  The Vatican will host a meeting in February 2015 to reflect on four issues: 1) Between…
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Over the weekend I attended the meetings for a group called, “Council 50” – which is hoping to host a gathering in Rome in November 2015 to bring together representatives from all over the world to share their particular political and social contexts, and their positive experiences of being church. It sounds exciting but the…
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By all accounts, the theme of these Synod sessions should have been collegiality. Pope Francis, instead, has chosen a topic that interests and affects almost all Catholics, in some way: family. Every day, home-grown collegiality. Undoubtedly a populist, Francis has engaged the world’s Catholics in discussions of family life, the Sacraments, divorced and remarriage, family…
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Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) held its steering committee meeting this past week just outside of Dublin, hosted by our Irish delegates from We Are Church – Ireland.  The annual meeting brings together leaders in the women’s ordination movement  from Australia to Bangladesh, Poland to Italy, Germany to Canada, representing a spectrum of strategy and practice. …
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Mary Jeremy Daigler. Incompatible with God’s Design: A History of the Women’s Ordination Movement in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. Lanham, MA: Scarecrow Press, 2012. 199 pp., appen., biblio., index. ISBN 978-0-8108-8479-3. $75.00. There was a time in my life when I devoured every article and book on women’s ordination. I was passionate about every…
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