Christina Moreira ARCWP on TV in Spain- during Pope Leo’s historic visit

 Thank you, Christina for sharing the good news that women priests serving inclusive Catholic Communities is already a reality in the Catholic Church !

“Persistent Justice” - Address to WOC on 50th Anniversary by Mary Hunt

Thank you, Mary Hunt, for your prophetic voice for Gospel equality for women and non -binary genders in the Church.  

Originally published by

 

As a cradle Irish Catholic, brought up in the 1950’s in Syracuse, New York, ordination was not among my career choices. In the mid-1960s, a priest who taught religion at Bishop Ludden High School confidently assured the girls in my class that only men could be ordained. We girls discussed this after class. In our 15-year-old wisdom, we concluded he was wrong.

I went on to study Theology and Philosophy at Marquette University in 1969, and then to Harvard Divinity School in 1972 where I was part of the first sizeable cohort of women students. Most of them were brilliant and creative Protestants preparing for ordination and jobs with paychecks and pensions. That was new to me. The other Catholic and I were preparing for academic careers, blissfully ignorant of the ministry. Rosemary Radford Ruether taught at Harvard then. Mary Daly was nearby at Boston College writing Beyond God The Father. So, I picked up the basics of feminism from those friends and mentors by osmosis by the age of 23.

I went on to theological doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, in the fall of 1974. I lived initially at the Episcopal seminary (Church Divinity School of the Pacific). I mistakenly thought it would be a hotbed of feminism because the first eleven U.S. Episcopalian women had just been ordained, validly if illicitly, on July 29, 1974. Imagine my chagrin when some of the women in my dorm preferred not to the discuss that watershed event for fear of endangering their own chances for ordination.

In the fall of 1975, word spread in Berkeley about a Women’s Ordination Conference in Detroit. A local Catholic woman, Judy Whitehead, said although she could not go, she wanted to give a scholarship to someone from Berkeley. I was chosen and jumped at the chance. I praise her name today. I attended the conference like a sponge, soaking up the people and ideas, passions and pains. Who could forget the session when those who felt called to ordination were invited to stand? We young ones sat on the floor to give chairs to our elders in the crowded room. I remember kneeling since I wanted to see who stood. It was exhilarating to know that there were women bold and insightful enough to make their callings public.

In retrospect, I think we all should have stood, not because we all wanted to be ordained to a clerical, celibate, hierarchical priesthood. Rather, we all should have stood because what was at stake then, as now, is a much larger struggle to guarantee every person the right to choose and fulfill their vocations to the best of their ability for the sake of the world.

The non-ordination of women, as the great feminist biblical scholar and WOC collaborator Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza named it, is a symbol and an example of the many ways women and non-binary people, immigrants, people of color, and those with disabilities are systematically marginalized. In the 14^th century, Catherine of Siena declared: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” Anything that stands in the way of doing what one feels called to do diminishes the whole world. We won’t stand for it.

Since 1983, when Diann Neu and I started WATER(Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual), we have collaborated consistently with WOC through the Women-Church Convergence. One memorable protest, “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” was at the Vatican Embassy in Washington on August 26, 1987.  A dozen of us were arrested. WOC Founding Director Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick proclaimed: “We will not accept men telling women they can’t be priests because that’s the way God wants it; She does not!”

In the 1990’s, WOC lobbied the bishops at their annual meetings in Washington. We loitered in hotel lobbies, greeting bishops, and urging them along. We visited the vestment suites in the hotel where bishops would shop for finery in their free time. Some Dutch companies brought especially beautiful robes and mitres. It was shocking for the Dutch salesmen to see women trying on their wares. No one lasts long in this movement without a robust sense of humor.

The installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Elisabeth Mullally, underscored our apparent lack of success compared with the achievements of our Anglican siblings. But we have accomplished more than our mission.

What we have accomplished despite the non-ordination of women?

1. Our faithful, sustained, varied, creative, and generous work has changed the face of institutional Roman Catholicism.

The refusal of patriarchal officials to make needed changes in structure and polity, combined with the worldwide clergy sexual abuse scandal, has left the institution weakened to the point of irrelevance. It is tarnished as a source of moral wisdom at a time of global peril. Pope Leo’s anti-war/anti-nuke rhetoric notwithstanding, imagine how much more powerful Catholic non-violence claims would be if they came from a credible institution.

Saint Sr. Theresa Kane, of blessed memory, in her historical welcome to Pope John Paul II on October 7, 1979 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, laid out women’s willingness to serve “in and through the Church as fully participating members.” The failure of decision-making men to embrace this generosity astonishes and scandalizes to this day.

The Spirit moves on. More than a billion Catholics are church in no uncertain terms and without apology. We now have women and non-binary priests and ministers, who, with the rest of us, are busy meeting the needs of the world not fretting about the failures of the church. The day will come when those in high office regret the error of their ways. They will come to our grandchildren to ask forgiveness which we would grant them today if they ask us and change their ways. Meanwhile, our energies are trained on stopping war, ending racism, ableism, sexism, and poverty, safeguarding the planet, and ministering to those in need. We are busy.

2. Ordination as we knew it in 1975 is a different sacrament today

Think of your own call to ministry, perhaps your ordination, and the many ways you minister to the needs of the world. Contrast your training with that of young male seminarians who are still educated like hot house flowers, far from the company of women and non-binary people, and limited to a narrow curriculum. My studies in interreligious and non-religious settings, my Clinical Pastoral Education in a women’s prison, and my several years of living and teaching in Argentina during a dictatorship were preparation for meeting the needs of the world as a scholar and as an activist.

Catholic lesbian, bisexual, queer women have a more difficult path than our cis gay male brothers who are in the vast majority in their circles. Women who live beyond the heterosexual norm were the first intersectional challenge to the women’s ordination movement. To our movement’s collective credit, we were met for the most part with hospitality and respect despite what I know is still some trepidation about the movement being seen as queer. More intersectionality is incumbent upon us, especially with people of color and young people who must be accorded the same welcome.

Women, especially queer women, have been the canaries in the coalmine on ordination. We experienced early the need to move beyond the institutional church. In a May 2026 discussion hosted by the Women of Dignity and WATER entitled “Catholic Lesbians and Queer Women Look at Women’s Ordination— Roles, Contributions, and Expansive Options,” two lesbian women described their ordinations.

One, a former WOC staff, spoke about accompanying her beloved father at his deathbed in 1983. A male priest was invited to offer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. The priest said, “Hello, my name is Ed and I am a priest.”  Her father, near death, replied, “Nice to meet you and so is my daughter.” With good reason, she considered that her ordination. Her powerful artistic and social change work is proof that when you are doing your God-given work, you set the world on fire. Thank you, Marsie Silvestro.

Another lesbian woman priest spoke of her three ordinations. Her first ordination involved religiousdisobedience. In 1988, she was asked to preside at a Mass with New York Dignity in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She was also arrested for civil disobedience in New York City protesting the infamous 1986 “Halloween Letter” in which Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger defined homosexual orientation an “objective disorder” and an inclination toward “intrinsic moral evil.” That is still official church teaching, our abundant healthy love notwithstanding.

Her second ordination was as part of a “priesthood of all believers” who founded “A Critical Mass: Women Celebrating the Eucharist.” That group fed homeless people in the park near the earthquake-damaged Oakland Cathedral in California, and then celebrated Eucharist with all.

Her third ordination was in 2005 by Roman Catholic Women Priests bishops and the community assembled on a boat on the St. Lawrence Seaway. She called it a symbolic reinforcing of her already priestly work. She ‘priests’ with style. Thank you, Victoria Rue.

So it goes that women rejected by patriarchy create and find new ways to meet the needs of the world.

3. Thanks to the women’s suffrage movement for inspiration as we persist

The play Suffs reminded me of parallels between the struggle for the right for some women to vote, and our ordination struggle. In 1920, white women, and far too much later Indigenous, Asian, Black, and Brown women gained suffrage. Recent Supreme Court actions threaten to reinscribe Jim/Jane Crow era dynamics, but the constitutional right to vote is clear.

White women made mistakes: they left women of color on the margins of the movement; they fought one another over the right way to proceed; but it took all of their efforts to get it done. Once they won the vote for white women, many turned their attention to the Equal Rights Amendment and to civil, especially voting, rights for people of color. Racism remains strong nonetheless.

We, too, have made many mistakes. U.S. white women have learned that our experiences, our faith, our families are not normative especially in an increasingly diverse global church growing fastest in Africa and Latin America.

A second lesson from the Suffrage movement is that our work is not a quick fix for a single problem. It is the work of our lives, generations from cradle to grave, for which the bonds between/among us are as important as the outcome, and the outcome is far more than women priests.

The suffrage campaign lasted 72 years, from the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to the Ratification of the 19^thAmendment in 1920. Many who envisioned the goal, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were long dead and the young people of the movement aged into graceful old women. Sound familiar?

Those of us here this weekend who attended the 1975 conference as young people are not dinosaurs but relics. Some of our siblings here today will, by the grace of God, celebrate WOC’s centennial whether women are ordained by then or not. Why? WOC’s mission is “to advocate and pray for women’s ordination as deacons, priests, and bishops into an inclusive and accountable Roman Catholic Church.” That is a worthy project which may not be finished even in another fifty years. But it is what the Divine invites in us, with us, and because of us in service of a safer, fairer, greener world that matters.

Suffrage leader Alice Paul dedicated herself body and soul to the movement in a laser-focused way although she was a bit of a pain in the neck. Other women got sick and died trying. We have lost many along our way, some to old age, some to broken hearts as their dedication was rewarded by stones not bread. All of us challenge and fortify one another.

Like our suffrage sisters, sometimes we are driven wild by the demands of purists or by the compromises of those who practice expediency. We know those people; we can be those people! But the bottom line is that the vote was not won by one strategy, nor will ordination be won by one path. There is no one, right way to justice. There are many, varied, sometimes seemingly contradictory strategies. Viewed from the far side of the moon, as we now can, the differences fade and the struggle is really one. The bonds between/among us are what endure in epic struggles like suffrage and ordination. These struggles require commitments of a lifetime and generations of people to bring about not a single goal but a transformed Earth.

 

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Mary E. Hunt is an American feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, US. A Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to social justice concerns.

 

Ordain Women Now! ( It’s Biblical, It’s Rational, It’s Time) from Daily Kos

 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/1/800048727/community/ordain-women-now

Churches should ordain all genders to leadership positions in the church. Patriarchy wastes the God-given talents of women. All genders should flourish within whatever vocation (calling) God has given them, including the vocation to pastoral ministry. 

Regarding women specifically, the celebration of women’s gifts would be in keeping with the Bible, which deems both men and women to be made in the image of God, to love and be loved and celebrate love (Genesis 1:27). Although it was written during times of horrible misogyny and violence, the Bible still repeatedly records women’s leadership. Miriam was a prophet (Exodus 15:20) who led the exodus along with Moses and Aaron (Micah 6:4). God appointed the prophet Deborah as a judge, leader of the Israelites (Judges 4). When the priests Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah needed help interpreting a newly discovered religious text, they consulted the prophet Huldah, wife of Shallum (2 Kings 22:14). Isaiah’s wife was likewise a prophet (Isaiah 8:3). And the prophet Joel predicted that the Holy Spirit would animate both men and women (Joel 2:28–29). 

Recognizing the powerful women hailed by his tradition, Jesus chose to celebrate and empower women. The Gospel of Luke records that Anna the prophet praised Jesus’s arrival at the temple as a boy, making her the third person (after Mary and Simeon) to recognize him as the Messiah (Luke 2:36–38). Once Jesus began his ministry, he defied patriarchy by including women among his disciples; he included among his followers Mary Magdalene, Joanna (the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza), Susanna, and many other women who supported Jesus with their own funds (Luke 8:1–3). 

 the ancient world, women were rarely considered suitable for education, but Jesus invited them to learn (Luke 10:38–42). Matthew records only female disciples being present at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:55–56). Luke recounts that women were the first to discover Jesus’s resurrection, but when they told the male disciples, none but Peter believed (Luke 24:9–11). Women were Jesus’s most faithful disciples, perhaps because Jesus has no fragile male ego to defend.

The early church continued Jesus’s liberating praxis. Paul writes that, since all are one in Christ Jesus, there is no longer male and female (Galatians 3:28). He acknowledges that women can be prophets (1 Corinthians 11:5), an acknowledgement ratified in Acts, which deems Philip the evangelist to have four unmarried daughters with the gift of prophecy (Acts 21:8–9). Paul calls Phoebe a deacon of the church (Romans 16:1) and calls Junia an apostle (Romans 16:7). He refers to Euodia and Syntyche as his coworkers (Philippians 4:2–3), as well as Prisca, Mary, and Tryphosa (Romans 16:3–12). 

One of the oldest Christian basilicas in Israel refers to “the Holy Mother Sophronia,” while its references to male and female deacons are almost equal in number.  Scholars now call this basilica the “Church of the Deaconesses.” 

Despite this evidence for the historical importance of women’s ministry, most churches do not ordain women. They give a variety of “reasons” for their refusal, but there are good reasons to ordain women, who can preach as well as men, perform sacraments as well as men, care for the sick as well as men, interpret the Bible as well as men, and lead as well as men. These “reasons” cannot justify the ongoing waste of talent and denial of call. 

Tragically, people are so used to male priests and pastors that they have a hard time imagining otherwise. Given our unholy tendency to divinize the familiar and demonize the unfamiliar, the idea of women’s ordination offends many. Nevertheless, those denominations that ordain women generally attract more female than male pastors. The first church that my wife, Abby, and I pastored had a slew of female ministers before we came as co-pastors. When I gave my first sermon, a girl in the congregation exclaimed to her mother, “I didn’t know men could preach!” 

That girl had never felt spiritually excluded, thank God. By ordaining women and using gender-balanced language for God, we assure girls that they, too, partake in divinity. We inform boys that girls are their spiritual equals and deserving of equally respectful treatment. We encourage women who have been marginalized by their spiritual traditions to feel centered. And we allow men, many of whom have or had emotionally distant relationships with their fathers, to have a closer relationship with their metaphorical Mother-God.

The Reign of Love, toward which the church works, celebrates all difference as a gift from God that enriches reality. For the church, the many genders provide the many perspectives through which we see into the Holy, together. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 224-226

It Only Takes Two or Three: the Story Behind Creating an Inclusive Catholic Community by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Inclusive-Catholic-Community-Liturgies-ebook/dp/B0H44MGCV5?dplnkId=5d2bbac9-2391-4597-a28f-ebec63c78ef8&nodl=1&th=1&psc=1#immersive-view_1780690364255

Twenty years ago, I had a dream.

I dreamed of a Church where everyone was welcome at the table. A Church where women and men shared ministry as equals. A Church where those who had been excluded, wounded, or silenced could find healing, belonging, and hope.

At the time, I often asked myself a simple question:

What would have helped me begin a new faith community?

The answer became this book.

Creating an Inclusive Catholic Community: Liturgies, Homilies and Resources is much more than a collection of prayers, liturgies, and practical tools. 

It is the story of an impossible dream that became a living reality.

I began with a conviction rooted in the words of Jesus:

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

I discovered that building an inclusive Catholic community does not require a large congregation, a church building, or institutional approval.

 It begins with a few people willing to gather in love, trust the Spirit, and take the first step.

The rest evolves in God’s time.

And so it did.

What started as a small gathering grew into the vibrant Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community, a welcoming community where all are invited to participate fully in liturgy, leadership, and ministry. 

Along the way, I witnessed countless moments of transformation: women answering calls to priestly ministry, people returning to faith after years of exclusion, and communities discovering new ways to embody the Gospel’s radical hospitality.

This book shares that journey.

Within its pages, you will find practical guidance for creating inclusive liturgies, preaching interactive homilies, celebrating sacraments, nurturing community, and building faith gatherings rooted in compassion, equality, justice, and love.

But even more importantly, you will find an invitation.

An invitation to rediscover that you already belong at God’s table.

An invitation to trust that the Holy Spirit is still creating new forms of Church in our time.

An invitation to believe that what may seem impossible today can become reality tomorrow.

If you have ever dreamed of a more welcoming Church.

If you have ever wondered whether a small group could make a difference…

If you have ever longed for a faith community where every voice matters and every person is valued.

This book is for you.

The message at the heart of Creating an Inclusive Catholic Community is simple:

It only takes two or three.

Gather in love.

Trust the Spirit.

Begin where you are.

The rest will evolve in God’s time.

With hope and gratitude,

Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan

Dean of D.Min and M. Div. Programs at Global Ministries University

Priest on pastoral team of Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community 

Bishop, Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests

Co-Founder, People’s Catholic Seminary

Author of Creating an Inclusive Catholic Community: Liturgies, Homilies and Resources

Homily for the Ordination of Lynn Lavictoire as a Priest in Ottawa, Canada by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP and Rev. Lynn Lavictoire ARCWP

https://youtube.com/live/eXP17EC8yBo

Bridget Mary- Part 1

It is with overflowing joy and deep gratitude to the Spirit that we gather today to ordain Lynn Lavictoire as a priest in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests here in Ottawa, Canada. 

Today is holy ground.
Today, we witness what happens when a woman says yes to God’s call—and refuses to let that call be silenced.

Lynn describes her journey to priestly ordination as rooted in a deep and persistent awareness of God’s presence in her life—calling her, guiding her, and inviting her into ever-deeper service. Through years of prayer, community, and courageous discernment, she has come to trust that this call is real, sacred, and meant to be shared. Her journey reflects a heart attuned to the Spirit and a commitment to serve God’s people with compassion, justice, and love. 

And Lynn, today we say to you:

We see you.
We affirm you.
We celebrate you.

A groundbreaking body of scholarship from the Westar Institute, especially After Jesus, Before Christianity, invites us to look again at the earliest followers of Jesus—not through the lens of later institutional structures, but through the vibrant, diverse, Spirit-filled communities they actually were.

What do we discover?

We discover there was no single, uniform Christianity in the beginning.
We discover many Jesus movements—creative, courageous, and alive in the Spirit.
We discover communities with remarkable openness regarding leadership, belonging, and shared ministry.

In those early centuries, followers of Jesus formed chosen families—communities rooted not in status or power, but in love, mutual care, and shared mission. They gathered in homes. They shared meals. They prayed together. They engaged in lively conversations, deep discernment, and communal leadership.

Sound familiar?

It should.

Because what we are living today in women-priest-led inclusive Catholic communities is not something new—it is something ancient.
It is Gospel-rooted.
It is Spirit-led.

Like those early Christian communities, we gather around tables—kitchen tables, Eucharistic tables, tables of welcome—where all are invited, all are heard, and all are blessed.

At our Eucharistic celebrations, the homily is often a dialogue.
The Eucharistic Prayer is prayed together by the community.
The table is open.
Especially open to those who have been excluded, wounded, silenced, or told they do not belong.

And so we proclaim with our lives:

This is the banquet of love, and there is a place for everyone.

The Gospels themselves affirm this inclusive vision.

Mary Magdalene stands at the heart of the resurrection story.
She is the first witness to the empty tomb.
She encounters the Risen Christ.
And she is sent—sent!—as the apostle to the apostles.

In both canonical and newly recovered ancient texts, women are not silent.
They are teachers.
They are leaders.
They are spiritual authorities within their communities.

In the Gospel of Mary, when Mary Magdalene’s authority is challenged by Peter and Andrew, Levi defends her leadership and affirms her credibility as a disciple beloved by Jesus. Mary is recognized as a legitimate spiritual leader worthy of respect and trust. 

Like Mary Magdalene, women and men today share equal authority to preach, teach, preside, and minister in Christ’s community of equals.

The international Roman Catholic Women Priests movement claims the spiritual authority to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops in apostolic succession to serve the people of God. 

The movement began in 2002 with the ordination of seven courageous women on the Danube River. Our first women bishops were ordained by a Roman Catholic male bishop in apostolic succession. Therefore, our ordinations are valid, though not recognized by Canon Law. Today, there are nearly 300 women priests, deacons, and bishops serving inclusive Catholic communities throughout the world. 

And today, in Lynn—and in women priests around the globe—we see that same Spirit alive and moving.

Like Mary Magdalene, Lynn is called to proclaim the Good News.
Like Mary Magdalene, she is sent.
Like Mary Magdalene, she stands in a lineage of courageous, Spirit-filled discipleship.

We reject excommunication because no human law can erase what God has created in baptism.

We are not leaving the Church.
We are helping to renew the Church—toward equality, justice, shared leadership, and the fullness of Gospel love.

We stand in the prophetic tradition of holy obedience to the Spirit. Like Joan of Arc, condemned by church authorities and later canonized, we trust that institutional rejection does not invalidate God’s call. We also remember women like Saint Mary MacKillop and Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, who followed conscience and suffered ecclesial punishment before later being honored by the Church. 

We are engaging in prophetic obedience by challenging an unjust law so that women and all genders may fully answer God’s call to ordained ministry in service of the people of God.

Yes, there is a cost.

Women priests often walk a path marked by misunderstanding, rejection, and exclusion.
But it is also a path filled with grace, courage, compassion, and deep joy.

We serve in inclusive communities, homes, hospitals, prisons, and places at the margins.
We accompany the grieving.
We bless the brokenhearted. We anoint the sick, we preside at baptisms and weddings,
We celebrate the sacredness of everyday life in Eucharistic Liturgies where all are welcome. 

And we do this together—

as companions,
as equals,
as a community of love.

And now, today, we ordain Lynn.

Lynn, your yes matters.
Your voice matters.
Your leadership matters.
Your ministry matters.

You are not alone.

You stand within a worldwide movement of Gospel equality.
You stand within a community of baptized equals.
You stand within the living tradition of Jesus’ disciples.

And most of all—

you stand in the infinite love of God who has called you by name.

So today, we rejoice.

We rejoice in your courage.
We rejoice in your calling.
We rejoice in the Spirit who continues to renew the Church through you.

And today we proclaim in this ordination:

The Spirit is alive.
The call is real.
And the future of the Church is unfolding—right here, right now—through courageous women like you, Lynn.

Amen.

Lynn Victoire ARCWP- Part 2

Lynn’s Homily 

“Who can discern the will of the Holy One?” That’s the question asked in our first reading from the Book of Wisdom well over two thousand ago. Yet it is as relevant today as it was back then. We are immersed in a secular culture of conflicting ideologies, corrosive power dynamics and “me first” attitudes. It’s hard to find God in this environment because as the Book of Wisdom warns us our “reasoning is faulty and our plans are shaky …Our best guesses about the things of this earth are only approximate, and we toil to discover even those things which are within our grasp.”

We need wisdom to guide us in our discernment. Not human wisdom, but: the kind of wisdom that was present in the beginning when God created the universe; the kind of wisdom found in the words of Jesus, the radical preacher from Nazareth; the kind of wisdom given to us through the Holy Spirit. Wisdom speaks softly and hearing it in the noise of modern living is challenging. Sometimes it can be found in mystical signs or a supernatural feeling, but it is often as simple as being in conversation with somebody else. I know that when I look around this room, I see many people who have been the source of this divine wisdom for me.

Wisdom can also be found in the movement of the Holy Spirit in all the faithful. The Catholic Church calls this “sensus fidelium” and it is the basis of synodality, a correction for the many things that are wrong in the Catholic Church today including the sexual abuse of children, financial abuse, clericalism, oppression of Indigenous people, treatment of LGBTQ+, and the minimization of women’s roles to name a few issues. Everyone was excited about synodality because it gives a new voice to the concerns of all people including the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and the victimized. However, the question that has emerged after these first few years of synodality is how long will it take for the Church hierarchy to truly listen and act on the wisdom that has been spoken through the voice of the people? Women have been waiting too long.

In the second reading, Saint Paul provides us a beautiful model of the ideal community where everyone treats each other with dignity and love. A community bound together in peace because “there is one Saviour, one faith, one baptism, one God and Creator of all.” A sacred place where God’s grace is poured out on the people who receive and exercise their diverse gifts for building up the Body of Christ. This is the model of the early Church, a community embracing the unity of hearts, the inclusion of all people, and the diversity of their gifts. 

These are also the ideals of the Roman Catholic Women Priests movement who welcome all people in all their diversity to live the way Jesus taught us. People are allowed to be amazingly creative, always dynamic and grow in relationship with each other and our wonderfully mysterious Triune God. When I first heard about Roman Catholic Women Priests, the burning question was how long was I going to sit in the pews and keep saying “no” to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? An instructor during my husband’s diaconate formation program once told us that if you are not standing on the edge, you are taking up too much room. I think you know where I stand now.

As well as answering God’s call, being part of the Roman Catholic Women Priests means stepping out with other women and men to make a difference. Justice demands that we raise our voices because change is needed and to stay quiet only serves to reinforce the status quo. 

I would love to be able to say that the path I have chosen to travel will lead to a place of joy and hope. However, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us a stark reality check. He begins by commanding us to love one another, but in the next breath, pulls back the curtain to reveal the friction that inevitably occurs when the kingdom of God collides with the ruling elite. The world will hate us because the world hated him first.

And when Jesus talked about “world,” he wasn’t talking about all the people who were not his followers. His heart was always open to the poor and the marginalized, the sick and the disabled, and anyone who was open to his message. Jesus’ greatest anger was directed towards the governing Jewish religious elite who controlled people’s lives and saw him as a disruptive threat. We all know what happened to Jesus after that.

In the modern context, it is the Catholic Church which has taken on the role of world, a system of control responsible for the spiritual care of over 1.4 billion people but which has pushed over half these people to the margins because they are women. The equal baptismal dignity envisaged by Paul is not being practiced. Women priests stand as a disruptive threat, a reality that was acknowledged through changes in canon law as recently as 2021 which more clearly articulated Church disapproval of ordained women including pushing them out of the Church by excommunicating them. As more and more people begin to actively support women’s ordination, the Church is likely to react even more strongly, but we cannot back down when we are challenging unjust laws and attitudes. Jesus never did.

Despite the strong resistance the Church has put up against ordaining women, and the challenges women priests will face, the winds of change are rising. Not every bishop, priest, and deacon in the Church share the same opinion. Many are in favour of ordained women and if not as priests, at least as deacons. Synodality has also escalated the potential for change and the current pope has every intention of continuing the process. Women priests all around the world are being authentic witnesses of discipleship in Christ demonstrating ordination is not an exclusive ministry for men. The winds of change are rising and that gives me hope. But what gives me the greatest hope is the statement coming from the Church hierarchy itself saying, “what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”