Roman Catholic Women Priests will be in Rome in October for the Synod

Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

 It is my hope that the upcoming Synod will create spaces for open conversations and offer new opportunities for collaboration between Church leaders and Roman Catholic Women Priests.

Roman Catholic Women Priests will be in Rome for the October Synod from Oct 5-15th.

On October 11th , members of the international Roman Catholic Women Priests Communities will offer an interactive program at Casa Bonus Pastor on our experience of redefining a new model of inclusive ministry in diverse communities of equals throughout the world.

For twenty plus years, we have expanded the Synodal tent by offering a renewed model of  priestly ministry that is inclusive and welcoming to everyone including the most marginalized in which all can receive sacraments, and in which  women and all genders can live their call to ordained ministry. 

 Women Priests are living Jesus teachings and example of God’s all-embracing love  for everyone including those who feel abandoned by an all-male patriarchal Church that has excluded them from reception of the sacraments. 

Women’s Ordination Conference Statement:

Today the Vatican's Synod office released the working document (or Instrumentum Laboris) for the October assembly. In it we find hope: The text invites discernment on the urgent needs of the church today, including ways to recognize the equal dignity of women through spiritual reflection and concrete steps. In its content and even its structure, full of questions for discernment, it is worth a read.

The document directly poses the question of envisaging ordained women deacons as well as the possibility of the creation of new ministries for women, conversations that WOC welcomes.

While the document notes that "most" continental assemblies "call for the question of women's inclusion in the diaconate to be considered," it omits the reality that those assemblies also called for discussion of women's ordination to the priesthood. The synodal dialogue will be painfully incomplete if it does not adequately address the widespread calls to open all ordained ministries to women.

Women and people of all genders who have discerned sincere calls to priesthood—some of the most marginalized voices in the church—must be heard this October. If the church is to live up to its synodal call to recognize the “common dignity deriving from Baptism,” it must welcome their witness.

The working document states that the synod is called to “missionary urgency” in addressing the many questions facing the church. We share that urgency, and in that spirit re-emphasize our commitment to continue walking with the People of God on the prophetic edges of the church.