Women Priests Are Not Waiting for the Church to Change—They Are Leading the Church into the Future

 

Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dcf8_9Oj-ss/?igsi=MWxsbWFyOHY2dGJ4NA==

(Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi's "Ordination" exhibition documents excommunicated Women Catholic Priests, exploring feminism and spirituality as part of Italy's Festival della Fotografia Italiana $

Women Priests Are Not Waiting for the Church to Change—They Are Leading the Church into the Future

By Bridget Mary Meehan, D.Min., ARCWP

It does not look as if Pope Leo XIV is going to move quickly toward the ordination of women.

I hope I am wrong.

Like many Catholics, I welcomed Pope Leo’s emphasis on listening, bridge-building and synodality. I continue to pray that he will listen deeply to the voices of women who have been called by God to ordained ministry and to the communities who affirm these calls.

But women cannot wait for Rome to recognize what the Holy Spirit is already doing.

This is why Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi’s extraordinary photographic exhibition, Ordination — I Think Jesus Was a Feminist, is so timely.

Bianchi’s long-term documentary project on Catholic women priests is being exhibited in Italy as part of the 2026 Festival della Fotografia Italiana. The festival’s theme, Riti e Visioni. Tra spirituale e materiale—“Rituals and Visions: Between the Spiritual and the Material”—explores the relationship between ritual, spirituality, embodiment and the search for transcendence.[^1]

Bianchi spent years documenting the lives and ministries of Catholic women priests who challenged the Vatican prohibition against women’s ordination. Her photographs are more than portraits. They constitute a visual history of a movement that refused to disappear.

We Are Already Here

For decades the institutional Church has debated whether women may be ordained.

Meanwhile, women have been ordained.

We are celebrating Eucharist.

We are preaching the Gospel.

We are baptizing, marrying, anointing and accompanying people through sickness, grief and death.

We are forming inclusive Catholic communities where everyone is welcome at the Eucharistic table.

We are living a renewed model of priestly ministry rooted not in clerical power but in Gospel equality and partnership with the people we serve.

I was ordained a Roman Catholic woman priest on July 31, 2006, aboard the Riverboat Majestic on Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers. My ordination was part of a movement that traces its modern beginning to the seven courageous women ordained on the Danube River in 2002.

The institutional Church responded with excommunications.

But excommunication could not extinguish our calls.

It could not stop communities from gathering.

And it certainly could not stop the Holy Spirit.

Today women priests and the inclusive communities we serve are demonstrating something profoundly important: women’s ordination is no longer simply a theoretical question to be debated by commissions.

It is a lived reality.

Pope Leo and the Closed Door

Pope Leo has inherited a Church in which the question of women’s equality can no longer be postponed indefinitely.

The Synod on Synodality stated clearly that there is no reason women should be prevented from exercising leadership in the Church and that the question of women’s access to the diaconate remains open.[^2]

Yet the Vatican commission studying women deacons concluded that current historical and theological research does not support admitting women to the diaconate while acknowledging that a definitive judgment cannot yet be made.[^3]

More recently, the Vatican rejected a proposal from the German bishops that would have permitted laypeople, including women, to preach the homily at Mass.[^4]

These developments make it difficult for me to believe that Pope Leo is preparing to open ordained priestly ministry to women anytime soon.

But perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking, “When will Rome finally allow women to become priests?” perhaps we should ask:

Where is the Holy Spirit already creating the Church of the future?

Jesus Did Not Ordain Twelve Priests

The argument that Jesus chose only men to exercise priestly authority reflects a later understanding of ministry that should not simply be projected backward onto the Gospel.

Jesus did not ordain the Twelve as Catholic priests.

He called disciples.

And women were among his closest disciples.

Mary Magdalene remained faithful when others fled. She encountered the risen Christ and was commissioned to proclaim the Resurrection to the other disciples.

She became the Apostle to the Apostles.

Phoebe was a deacon and benefactor.

Junia was prominent among the apostles.

Priscilla taught theology alongside Aquila.

Lydia led a house church.

Women proclaimed, taught, evangelized and led communities in the earliest generations of Christianity.

The movement Jesus began was far more radical than the patriarchal structures that later developed around it.

That is why the title of Bianchi’s exhibition makes me smile:

“I Think Jesus Was a Feminist.”

If feminism means affirming the full humanity, dignity and equality of women, the Gospel certainly gives us plenty to think about.

Jesus spoke publicly with women, learned from women, welcomed women as disciples and challenged religious and social structures that diminished them.

From Hierarchy to a Community of Equals

Women priests are not seeking simply to insert women into the existing clerical system.

That would not be enough.

The deeper transformation is a renewed priestly ministry within a community of baptized equals.

In our inclusive Catholic communities, the priest does not stand above the people as the exclusive mediator of divine grace. She/he is a companion on the journey, a facilitator of liturgical rites, a pastoral presence in a community of equals.

We gather in circles.

We share reflections on the Gospel.

We pray Eucharistic prayers together.

We welcome everyone to the table.

LGBTQ+ people, divorced and remarried Catholics, people alienated from institutional religion, seekers and doubters are welcomed as beloved members of the Body of Christ.

This is not merely about changing who may wear a Roman collar.

It is about changing our understanding of Church.

The Photographs Are Becoming History

This is why Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi’s photographs matter so much.

The Festival della Fotografia Italiana describes her work as a long-term project documenting Catholic women priests excommunicated by the Vatican.[^5]

These photographs preserve the faces of women who followed their consciences and their calls despite enormous institutional opposition. 

Someday Catholics may look at these images very differently.

They may ask:

Why did the Church excommunicate women for answering God’s call?

Why did it take so long to recognize women’s spiritual authority?

And why were Catholics told that a loving God could call only men to sacramental ministry?

History has a way of transforming yesterday’s rebels into tomorrow’s prophets.

We Are Not Waiting

I will continue to pray for Pope Leo. I support his stance on justice issues and outreach to the margins specifically migrants.

I will continue to hope that he listens to women, theologians, historians and Catholics throughout the world who long for a Church where gender is no barrier to sacramental ministry.

I would welcome dialogue with him.

But our movement cannot put the Holy Spirit on hold while another commission meets.

Women priests are not waiting for the Church to change.

We are changing the Church now.

Every time an inclusive Catholic community gathers around a Eucharistic table, the Church is changing.

Every time a woman preaches the Gospel, the Church is changing.

Every time someone who has felt rejected by religion discovers that there is a place for them at the table, the Church is changing.

Every time a woman answers God’s call despite being told that her gender makes that call impossible, the Church is changing.

Perhaps that is what Bianchi’s photographs ultimately reveal.

The future Church is not merely something we are waiting for.

In communities of equality, justice, compassion and radical inclusion, it is already being born among us.

And no decree from Rome can stop the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Notes

[^1]: Festival della Fotografia Italiana, Riti e Visioni. Tra spirituale e materiale, 2026. The festival runs June 12–September 6, 2026.

[^2]: Synod on Synodality, Final Document, no. 60. The document affirms that women should not be prevented from exercising leadership roles in the Church and states that discernment concerning women’s access to the diaconal ministry should continue.

[^3]: Second Study Commission on the Female Diaconate, report released by the Vatican in December 2025. The commission stated that current research did not support admission of women to the sacramental diaconate while acknowledging that its judgment was not definitive.

[^4]: Reuters, “Vatican rejects proposal to allow sermons by Catholic women,” June 23, 2026.

[^5]: Festival della Fotografia Italiana, biographical description of Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi, 2026. Bianchi’s Ordination — I Think Jesus Was a Feminist documents the lives of Catholic women priests who challenged the Vatican prohibition against women’s ordination.

AI Transparency Note

This article reflects the perspective, theology, ministry experience and editorial direction of Bridget Mary Meehan. ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used as a writing and research assistant to help organize, edit and document the article. Final responsibility for the ideas, theological interpretation and published text belongs to the author.

AI, Writing, and Ministry: How ChatGPT Helps Me Rediscover My Own Voice and Work

I was ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests Movement on July 31, 2006, aboard the Riverboat Majestic near Pittsburgh. That ordination marked both the culmination of a lifelong journey toward Gospel equality and the beginning of a new chapter of writing, organizing, speaking, and documenting a prophetic movement for change in the Roman Catholic Church.

Long before ChatGPT, I wrote about women’s equality, inclusive Catholic communities, spirituality, healing, and the Womenpriests Movement. My blog archives begin in 2007. In an April 20 reflection, “The Time Has Come for Ordaining Women,” I described women as equal images of the Holy and Womenpriests as offering “a renewed priestly ministry in a community of equals.”[^1]

During the movement’s early years, I helped communicate our mission to the media, often issuing statements in the movement’s name rather than my own. We were building a movement, not promoting individuals. The message belonged to all of us.

Now, nearly two decades later, artificial intelligence is helping me recover and reconnect with that history:

AI is helping me find my own history.

AI Helps Me Find What I Already Wrote

One of the most valuable ways I use ChatGPT is not to replace my writing but to locate, organize, and document work I have already done.

Over the years, my writing has appeared in books, blogs, websites, press releases, media statements, theological reflections, prayers, liturgies, educational materials, interviews, and documents connected with Roman Catholic Womenpriests and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.

Sometimes I remember an idea but not where I first expressed it. At other times, I recognize a phrase and think, “I know I wrote about this years ago—but where?” I also occasionally discover that something I wrote for the movement is still circulating online without my name attached.

AI can help me follow these threads.

The Roman Catholic Womenpriests resource collection identifies a historical overview of women priests in the Catholic tradition that I coauthored with Olivia Doko and Victoria Rue.[^4] In 2008, I coedited Women Find a Way: The Movement and Stories of Roman Catholic Womenpriests with Elsie Hainz McGrath and Ida Raming.[^5] In 2010, I published Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God—A Roman Catholic Woman Priest Story, bringing together memories, spirituality, inclusive liturgies, and the developing history of the movement.[^6]

These sources establish a historical trail. When AI helps me locate an old article or statement, it is not creating my theology. It is helping me recover ideas I have been developing for years.

Recovering the Story of a Movement

This work matters because the history of Roman Catholic Womenpriests needs to be preserved.

In the movement’s early years, we were making history while trying to explain it. Women were being ordained, inclusive communities were emerging, journalists were asking questions, and Vatican officials were condemning our ordinations. Catholics around the world were discovering that women were claiming their calls to ordained ministry.

Someone had to tell that story. I was one of the people doing so.

The historical record confirms this public role. In 2007, the National Catholic Reporter profiled me as one of the women priests helping shape the emerging movement.[^7] Other contemporary sources document my work communicating its vision and serving as a media contact.[^8]

Because many statements were issued collectively, my name may not appear on documents I remember writing. AI is useful here as a research assistant: it can help identify phrases, dates, related documents, and archived material that I can then examine and verify.

This is not AI creating my history. It is helping me recover it.

There is something moving about encountering words from years ago and realizing: I wrote that. I remember the women involved, the excitement surrounding an ordination, the opposition, and the effort to explain that women priests were not leaving the Church but working prophetically for its renewal.

I coined a seven-second sound bite for reporters: “We’re not leaving the Church—we’re leading it!”

We believed we were not simply placing women within an old clerical system. We were helping birth a renewed model of priestly ministry rooted in communities of equals.

Finding those early statements can feel like opening a family album. There we are—the movement in its early years, using words before we knew where the journey would lead. Sometimes I find my own words still circulating without my name attached.

That makes me smile. They served the movement.

My Voice Did Not Begin with ChatGPT

My writing voice did not begin with ChatGPT. Long before generative AI existed, I was writing about the themes central to my ministry: women’s equality, inclusive Eucharistic communities, the equality of the baptized, feminist theology, healing, justice, the Divine Presence within creation, and the transformation of priestly ministry.

My writing from 2007 demonstrates that continuity.[^9] My later work, including Living Gospel Equality Now, continued developing a spirituality of Gospel equality and a renewed priesthood.[^10] I am still writing about these themes today.

The technology is new. My voice is not.

AI did not create these convictions. They were shaped by life, community, study, prayer, the courageous people with whom I have journeyed, the Roman Catholic Womenpriests Movement, and my encounters with the Holy One.

AI as a Research Assistant

I think of ChatGPT primarily as a research, organizational, and editorial assistant.

I can bring it something I wrote fifteen years ago and ask it to compare that reflection with my current work. I can ask it to locate an earlier statement about apostolic succession, Gospel equality, or inclusive priestly ministry, or to identify where I developed a particular theological idea.

It can reduce repetition, organize material, clarify paragraphs, and identify places where documentation is needed.

But I must verify the sources. AI may help me find the trail; I still have to follow it.

AI Cannot Replace Lived Theology

There is also something AI cannot do.

It can organize information about Roman Catholic Womenpriests, but it did not stand with us at an ordination. It can explain excommunication, but it has never experienced what it means to be told by one’s Church that answering God’s call places a person outside institutional boundaries.

It can generate sentences about Eucharist, but it has never gathered around an open table with a community celebrating that everyone belongs. It can write about courage, but it has never had to risk anything.

AI can generate thousands of words about the Holy One, but it cannot encounter the Holy One.

Lived experience therefore remains indispensable to theology and ministry.

From Fear to Discernment

Our response to AI should be neither fear nor uncritical enthusiasm. It should be discernment.

We need to ask:

Is AI helping me think, or doing my thinking for me?

Is it helping me recover my own work, or manufacturing something I never said?

Am I checking its sources and verifying quotations?

Does the final writing reflect my convictions, experience, theology, and voice?

Can I take responsibility for every word I publish?

For students, ministers, theologians, and writers, these questions are more useful than simply asking, “Did you use ChatGPT?”

The better question is: “How did you use it?”

The Gift of Looking Back—and Moving Forward

At this stage of my life and ministry, one of AI’s greatest gifts is helping me look backward so I can move forward.

I have a substantial body of work behind me—books, articles, blog posts, prayers, liturgies, educational materials, media statements, interviews, and movement documents. AI can help me rediscover, organize, and document some of it.

Occasionally, it helps me find something I had almost forgotten. When that happens, I smile and think, “Well, Bridget Mary, you were saying that long before ChatGPT came along!”

Artificial intelligence does not have to diminish the human voice. Used wisely, transparently, and ethically, it can help us recover, preserve, strengthen, document, and share that voice with a new generation.

For me, AI has become a surprising companion—not writing my story, but helping me find pieces of the story I have already lived and written.

Footnotes

[^1]: Bridget Mary Meehan, “The Time Has Come for Ordaining Women,” Bridget Mary’s Blog, April 20, 2007.

[^2]: Women’s Ordination Conference and Roman Catholic Womenpriests, “Ordained Catholic Women and Advocates Present a New Vision of Church,” media release, November 7, 2007. The release lists Bridget Mary Meehan as an RCWP media contact.

[^3]: Women’s Ordination Conference, “Directory of Catholic Women Ministers,” entry for Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan. The directory identifies Meehan as the media contact for Roman Catholic Womenpriests in North America.

[^4]: Bridget Mary Meehan, Olivia Doko, and Victoria Rue, “A Brief Overview of Womenpriests in the History of the Roman Catholic Church,” listed in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests resource collection.

[^5]: Elsie Hainz McGrath, Bridget Mary Meehan, and Ida Raming, eds., Women Find a Way: The Movement and Stories of Roman Catholic Womenpriests (Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, 2008).

[^6]: Bridget Mary Meehan, Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God—A Roman Catholic Woman Priest Story (2010).

[^7]: Pamela Schaeffer, “Ordaining Women: Profiles of Five Women Priests,” National Catholic Reporter, December 7, 2007.

[^8]: Women’s Ordination Conference and Roman Catholic Womenpriests, “Ordained Catholic Women and Advocates Present a New Vision of Church,” November 7, 2007; Women’s Ordination Conference, “Directory of Catholic Women Ministers.”

[^9]: Meehan, “The Time Has Come for Ordaining Women.”

[^10]: Meehan, Living Gospel Equality Now.

Note on AI Assistance

I used ChatGPT as a research, brainstorming, organizational, and editorial tool in developing this article. It helped me locate and reconnect with earlier writings about the Roman Catholic Womenpriests Movement, including blog posts and historical materials from the movement’s early years. It also assisted in identifying sources for documentation.

I reviewed the material, verified the sources, revised the text, and made the final editorial decisions. The experiences, theological perspectives, memories, convictions, and voice expressed here are my own.