In the News

A young Christine Schenk once sat in a pew at St. John Catholic Church in Lima, overcome by the beauty of the Mass, and thought she would love to be a priest. But the second grader knew she couldn’t because she was a girl. After graduating from Lima Central Catholic High School and earning several…
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It was a time to look back at a 50-year journey, but also a time to look forward to the next 50 years. More than 200 attendees at the Women’s Ordination Conference’s 50th anniversary celebration May 22-24 mourned the members who have died since the first gathering in 1975, examined the first flourishing of the movement…
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There were so many uplifting and energizing things to celebrate at the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) held over Pentecost weekend in Detroit, Michigan. Coalition work is key to any movement, and this one is no exception. So it was wonderful to see and celebrate the blessed diversity of women’s ministries —…
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It’s time to completely rethink what ordination could look like in the Catholic Church, said one keynote speaker at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Women’s Ordination Conference.  More than 200 attendees at the May 22-24 Women’s Ordination Conference’s mourned the members who have died since the first gathering in 1975, examined the first flourishing of the…
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A Catholic woman who flew from the United States for the installation of the first female Archbishop of Canterbury has voiced her hope that the Vatican is “paying attention” to the historic occasion. Jane Varner Malhotra, 57, from Washington DC, held a sign reading “Catholics, let’s do this” outside Canterbury Cathedral in Kent on Wednesday, ahead of Dame…
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Catholic Women’s Ordination and Women’s Ordination Worldwide offer ‘warmest congratulations’ to Dame Sarah Mullally ahead of installation tomorrow. Campaigners for women priests and deacons in the Catholic Church extended their “warmest congratulations” to Dame Sarah Mullally as she prepares to be formally installed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury at Canterbury Cathedral tomorrow. “We are…
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Carol Crowley was a twenty-one-year-old student at Michigan State University when a parish staff member invited her to a Thanksgiving-weekend conference in Detroit on women and Catholic priesthood. Crowley had already discerned, with the help of priests at the student parish, that she was called to ordination, so when women with a calling were asked…
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By Aili Winstanley Channer A study group established during the Synod on Synodality denounced “machismo clericalism” and said that “much remains to be done” to enable women to embrace their vocations, both within and beyond formal ministries and institutional positions. … …The Women’s Ordination Conference said: “The authors of this report are frustratingly close to,…
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In a frank assessment of the complex role of women in the Catholic Church and its leadership, a Vatican study group called for broader access to positions of authority for Catholic women worldwide and for the church to confront what it described as persistent patterns of clericalism and “machismo.” … In a statement reacting to…
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Continuing the all-male tradition, on Thursday, Dec. 4, the Vatican’s papal commission voted against permitting women to serve as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. Though not the highest in the clergy food chain, deacons are ordained ministers permitted to administer the sacraments of matrimony, baptism and engage in other roles; they do not celebrate…
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