Press Releases

For Immediate Release: November 28, 2022 In an interview with America Magazine, Pope Francis upheld the Catholic church’s unequal treatment of women by exploiting misogynistic metaphors to dismiss the sincerely discerned vocations of women. When asked what he might say to a woman who serves her church and experiences a call to priesthood, Francis responded…
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For Immediate Release: 27 October 2022 The Women’s Ordination Conference is encouraged by the expansive “Working Document for the Continental Stage” released 27 October 2022 by the Vatican’s synod office, a text synthesizing national and local listening session reports that will serve as the basis for the next phase of Pope Francis’ now three-year synod…
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October 3, 2022 For Immediate Release On 4 October 2022, an international delegation from the Catholic Women’s Council (CWC), a global umbrella network of more than 60 Catholic women’s organizations, will present their synodal synthesis to the Vatican’s synod office. From March through June 2022, CWC coordinated many sessions of discernment, discussion, and prayer with…
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAugust 29, 2022 On August 29, as Pope Francis convened an extraordinary two-day meeting of the world’s cardinals, a delegation of Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) processed towards the Vatican carrying red parasols with messages of inclusion and reform. Making their way toward the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the women welcomed…
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Campaigners shine a light on the Vatican’s exclusion of women ahead of historic meeting For Immediate release: 27 August 2022 On the eve of Pope Francis’ all-male consistory, Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) shined a bright light on one of the greatest cons-in-history: the exclusion of women from ordained ministry. In a stealth operation on the…
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For Immediate Release: July 13, 2022 The Women’s Ordination Conference welcomes Pope Francis’ July 13, 2022 appointment of three women, Sr. Raffaella Petrini, F.S.E., Sr. Yvonne Reungoat, F.M.A., and Dr. Maria Lia Zervino, to the Dicastery for Bishops as an important step in removing all barriers to women’s full participation in the life of the…
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Media Advisory: June 1, 2022 Members of the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) will gather outside Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago on Pentecost Sunday, June 5th 2022, at 2 pm, calling the church to “journey together” with women who long to be embraced as equals in Christ. The witness is in response to the Pope Francis’…
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March 22, 2022 The Women’s Ordination Conference applauds Pope Francis’ reorganization of the Vatican’s governing departments in his updated Apostolic Constitution, Praedicate Evangelium (“Preach the Gospel”). Most significantly, the constitution expands leadership roles once reserved for cardinals or bishops to laypeople, including women. WOC supports this renewed emphasis on “canonical mission,” or baptism, as the…
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Media Advisory: Contact: Kate McElwee, kmcelwee@womensordination.org Anne Tropeano, known as Father Anne, will be ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in Albuquerque, NM on Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 2 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John, defying the Vatican and breaking canon law, which automatically excommunicates women who attempt ordination.  Anne Tropeano holds a…
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For Immediate Release: September 12, 2021 As Pope Francis arrives in Slovakia, we urge him to publicly recognize woman priest Ludmila Javorová, who 51 years ago was clandestinely ordained a priest by a Roman Catholic bishop as part of the underground church in Czechoslovakia during the country’s authoritarian Communist rule.  Entrusted by her bishop, Javorová courageously…
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