In the News

July 9th, 2018

Executive Director Kate McElwee on “TV Thek”

A television broadcast of the 2018 International Church Reform Network meeting in Slovakia. (Begins at minute 15:27) https://tvthek.orf.at/profile/Orientierung/1366/Orientierung/13982324

June 25th, 2018

Pope Wants More Women in Church Leadership Positions but Rejects Female Priests (Christian Post)

Pope Francis has stated that while he supports having more women in positions of authority within the Roman Catholic Church, he does not support allowing women to become priests. The head of the one billion-strong Church was interviewed by Reuters earlier this week on a host of issues. When asked about female ordination, Francis responded…
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June 25th, 2018

WOC Executive Director, Kate McElwee in DenníkN.sk (Slovakia)

Američanka bojuje za ženskú vysviacku v rímskokatolíckej cirkvi aj ružovým dymom nad Vatikánom Predsedníčka organizácie Konferencia pre ženskú vysviacku Kate McElweeová hovorí, že katolícky klérus sa diskusiu na túto tému snaží umlčať, a vysvetľuje, prečo súčasná cirkev neslúži všetkým veriacim. Click here for the full article.

June 11th, 2018

Advocates dismayed by reaffirming ban on women priests

Advocates for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church said they are “deeply dismayed” by a newspaper article penned by the Vatican’s doctrinal chief that reaffirmed the church’s ban on women priests as “definitive” and “a truth belonging to the deposit of faith.” “Archbishop [Luis] Ladaria’s arguments are unconvincing and simply nothing new,” said a…
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April 24th, 2018

Francis still falls short with Catholic women, feminist scholars say

NEW YORK — In five years, Pope Francis has led a call to save humanity from climate change, propelled a renewed vision on social justice and offered a clear welcome to estranged Catholics. But he still has issues with women which dampen that positive impact, a consensus emerged from feminist scholars and others at an April…
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April 4th, 2018

Women no longer content to be silent on lack of church role

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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April 3rd, 2018

The movement for women’s equality in the church cannot be stopped

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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March 11th, 2018

BBC Radio Ulster: Kate McElwee on “Sunday Sequence”

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

March 4th, 2018

“Reasonably Catholic” Kate McElwee discusses Voices of Faith 2018

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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January 11th, 2018

Catholics launch initiative to celebrate feminism, activism, faith (Windy City Times)

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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