In the News

While there have been important cultural advances for women in terms of their role in society, the one institution that does not appear to have altered its attitude towards women to any great degree is the Roman Catholic Church. This is despite Pope Francis’s 2013 remarks that women are “essential for the church”. It seems…
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As Catholic feminists and leaders of organizations committed to justice for women within our church as well as throughout society, we have followed Voices of Faith’s efforts to crack open the Vatican walls by sponsoring an annual forum about women inside one of the last remaining bastions of male domination in the western world. Since 2014, Voices…
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With BBC Radio’s Audrey Carville, WOC executive director, Kate McElwee and Paula McKeown from Down & Conor Diocese discuss Mary McAleese’s address at Voices of Faith 2018 and the question: are women valued in the Catholic Church?  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p060sfyc

Rome-based Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, praises the previously deferential-to-cardinals organization Voices of Faith for taking its annual International Women’s Day conference outside the Vatican walls after three planned speakers were rejected from the program. One of them is former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, an outspoken proponent of women’s ordination and…
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New York, NY and global locations: Inspired by the global women’s marches one year ago, and aware that the Roman Catholic Church and religious institutions around the world are in dire need of an infusion of feminist energy and truth, The Women Who Stayed, FutureChurch, Women’s Ordination Conference, and Call To Action announce the launch…
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  Read the full article on The Tablet: There are also things happening on the edges in Rome, which suggest that subtle shifts are occurring. Kate McElwee, who has just been appointed executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, is the first holder of her role to be based in Rome.     

Although response from Catholic clergy has been muted in the wake of Springfield, Illinois, Bishop Thomas Paprocki’s June 12 decree that prohibits Catholics in “same-sex ‘marriage’ ” from receiving Communion, lay organizations have been vocal about their disdain for the decree. The decree bars Catholics in same-sex marriages from receiving Communion as well as from receiving “ecclesiastical…
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While many lay organizations are voicing disdain directly to Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, over his recent decree denying church services to Catholics in same-sex marriages, the feminist coalition Women-Church Convergence is reaching out to the people of the diocese. Women-Church Convergence, which “is a coalition of autonomous Catholic-rooted groups working to build just social and ecclesial structures…
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In this episode of the Religious Feminism interview series, Kate McElwee and Erin Saiz Hanna, co-Executive Directors of Women’s Ordination Conference, tell us about feminists’  holy mischief within the Roman Catholic church; that Pope Francis isn’t as progressive as he may seem to outsiders, at least, not with regards to women; and why they love to…
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Read the full article on the Daily Beast  … Kate McElwee, co-executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, says that while she supports the idea of married priests, she thinks it takes away from the discussion of women’s roles in the Church. “A married priesthood would be a great step for heterosexual men, and another…
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