In the News

By Heidi Schlumpf As the delegates to the Synod on Synodality met in Rome for the first day of the month-long summit to determine the future of the Catholic Church, down the street several dozen women held a gathering of their own. Representing four continents and dressed in episcopal purple, the women unfurled a giant…
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By Katie Collins Scott On Oct. 3, 2018, as bishops and cardinals entered the Vatican to participate in the Synod of Bishops on young people, a group peacefully protested the fact that no women would be allowed to vote at the international gathering.  Standing outside the Palace of the Holy Office, near where the synod members…
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By Brian FragaStaff Reporter The 41-page synthesis report for the Synod of Bishops on Synodality disappointed several progressive Catholics and others who advocate for the Catholic Church to rethink its approach to issues such as the clergy sex abuse crisis, LGBTQ ministry, women’s roles in the church and the possibility of ordaining women to the…
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 Footnote spoke with WOC executive director, Kate McElwee. She stated that her organization was actively and faithfully engaged, encouraging broad and hopeful participation of women in the process, “despite the Vatican’s minimal credibility to truly listen to women’s voices, vocations and concerns.” Read the full article (in Spanish) here.

BY NICOLE WINFIELD VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ big gathering of Catholic bishops and laypeople said Saturday it was “urgent” to guarantee fuller participation of women in church governance positions and called for research on allowing women to be deacons to be released within a year. But the meeting didn’t take decisive action on that issue, and…
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The pontiff carefully examines the badge hanging from a lady’s neck. She managed to find her way to Francis, seated at one of the many round tables set up in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. She whispers a word in his ear. Other women, countless, young and old, secular and religious, surround the pope. Two men and…
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By Ailbhe ConneelySocial Affairs & Religion Correspondent A report concluding Pope Francis’s month-long synod on Synodality has been published by the Vatican. It follows a meeting of the 16th Synod of Bishops this month, which was held after the Pope called for a global conversation among Catholics in 2021, about their church. For the first time…
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In a historic moment for the Catholic Church, women are to vote for the first time at the Synod of Bishops, later this month. Annette Young asks Kate McElwee, the executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, if we are moving closer to the possibility of having Catholic women priests. See the interview with Kate…
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By Virginia Saldanha Several lay people groups from all parts of the world have been congregating in Rome several days before the start of the Synod on Synodality and continue to do so, to try to get their voices heard. … …From Oct 3 to 6, the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW),…
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By Megan Williams This week in St. Peter’s Square, as men in long robes shuffled in solemn processions, with chorales and canticles blending with church bells, small groups of Catholic protesters gathered half-a-kilometre away, at the far end of the wide avenue leading up to the Vatican square. At the end of Via della Conciliazione,…
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