06 October 2026

Dear Pope Leo,

CC: Cardinal Michael Czerny

Women’s Ordination Worldwide recently held our annual gathering and prayed for our mission and for yours, that you may see beyond the sexism of your surroundings and recognise that women are already priests.

We dedicate this letter to the blessed memory of Reverend Ludmila Javorová (1932 - 2026) whose life and priesthood we will celebrate at her funeral on 10 October 2026.

In 1970, Bishop Felix Maria Davídek exhibited the courage and spiritual leadership we are so desperate to see in the Catholic hierarchy today.

Identifying a pastoral need to minister to women imprisoned by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, he secretly ordained Ludmila as a priest.

In 1996, Vatican officials informed Javorová that she could no longer exercise her priestly ministry and declared that her ordination was invalid - solely because she was a woman.

For the rest of her life, Ludmila would be obliged to exercise her priestly ministry in secret, with no institutional recognition or support. A much needed, talented and spirit filled priest, was abandoned and shunned by her church.

But when it came to the Czech married men who were also secretly ordained by Bishop Davídek in the underground church, the Vatican invited them to obtain official recognition in order to continue their ministries. Can you explain why their priesthood was open to regularisation despite also being ‘officially’ against the Latin Rite rules, while Ludmila’s ordination remained rejected and denied?

Earlier this year, the Vatican beatified two Czech priests who were martyred under Communist rule.

Cardinal Czerny (who hails from the the former Czechoslovakia) said this about the persecution of Fr. Jan and Fr. Václav: The communist regime did

not merely want to kill them; it wanted to annihilate their priestly identity.

We are asking you Pope Leo and you, Cardinal Czerny as a compatriot of Ludmila’s to officially recognise that she was validly ordained and to apologise for seeking to annihilate her priestly identity.

WOW asks: Is the official Catholic Church willing to risk its moral credibility by continuing to deny the reality of Ludmila’s ordination? The fact that a Roman Catholic Bishop validly ordained a woman as a priest in the modern era surely sets a precedent that cannot be overlooked. If the official response is that this action was a mistake, how are we supposed to accept that the ordinations of male priests are always valid? The Catholic hierarchy must finally be compelled to acknowledge historical truth and cannot continue to evade accountability for its actions.

Given Ludmila’s devotion to her faith during the communist persecution of the Catholic Church, we believe there is a cause for her canonization. She and the other women ordained in the face of extreme danger, demonstrated extraordinary courage. Her first act of non-violent resistance was in accepting Bishop Davídek’s call to serve imprisoned women who were denied the sacraments. Her second act was in affirming the dignity of her ordination in the face of an intransigent church hierarchy.

Ludmila Javorová should be recognized as a saint. Instead she has been treated like a sinner.

OUT OF THE DEPTHS, I AM HERE

OUT OF THE DEPTHS OF HIDDEN NEED/BURIED TREASURE/DORMANT SEED/THE

FUTURE IS ARISING/A FUTURE SO SURPRISING/IT IS HERE/I HEAR YOUR VOICE

Words by Sister Miriam Therese Winter

sincerely,

Women’s Ordination Worldwide

From international news September 2021: As Francis Visits Slovakia, International Crowd Celebrates Czech Woman Priest

Historical Background

Ludmila Javorová

Women’s Ordination Worldwide mourns the passing of woman of courage, Reverend Ludmila Javorová. Ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 29 December 1970 in the underground Church of Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia (as it then was), she courageously served the Church when Catholicism had been driven underground because of persecution by occupiers.

Under the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia (1948–1989), the Church was systematically persecuted. Many priests, religious, and lay leaders were imprisoned, tortured, and even killed.

Hundreds of priests, monks, nuns, and laypeople were sentenced to long prison terms.

Clergy were subjected to show trials, forced labour camps, extrajudicial harassment by the secret police, and, in many cases, torture during interrogation.

Some priests were executed after staged trials. Two such priests, Jan Bula and Václav Drbola, were beatified in 2026 as martyrs of communism.

Archbishop Josef Beran was interned for years. Priest Josef Toufar was illegally arrested and tortured to death. Both were later legally rehabilitated by the state.

In this climate of fear, an underground church rose up to operate outside state-controlled structures. Bishop Felix Davídek (who himself spent 14 years in prison) clandestinely ordained priests including married men and, controversially, a number of women to provide pastoral service including sacraments to the members of the Church. Ludmila Javorová answered this call.

One of Davidek’s reasons for ordaining women was to provide sacramental care to imprisoned women. These included catechists and nuns who had suffered torture and abuse, who were incarcerated, and who could not be reached by male priests. Davidek knew women priests could go ‘under the radar’ to serve.

The Vatican later normalised the ordinations of the married men but has continuously refused to recognise the courageous women who, despite danger and peril, courageously answered the call to ministry. These women and their service remain significant in the history of persecution and resistance within the Czech Catholic Church.

Ludmila, and the other women who served, are giants in terms of responding to their calls to serve as Catholic priests. They did so knowing the risks of arrest and torture. These were expected consequences of the time.

In 1983, Javorová appealed to Pope John Paull II about her case. She did not receive a reply. In 1996, she was officially told she was forbidden to exercise her priestly ordination because her ordination was viewed to be invalid according to canon law because she was a woman.

The Church continues to ignore her.

- Women’s Ordination Worldwide

Ludmila Javorova in hospice with friend, Roman Catholic Woman Bishop Reverend Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger shares a visit with Ludmila.

Christine is a hero of our’s, too. She is one of the Danube Seven — the group of 7 women who were ordained on the River Danube in 2002.

From Catholic news 2011: Czechoslovakia’s Secret Church Receives Herbert Haag Foundation Award: The Tablet 09 April 2011

Throughout the 41 years of Communist rule in the former Eastern bloc country, an underground network of groups and individuals kept the Catholic faith alive, even to the point of ordaining married men and women. Last week, their achievement was belatedly honoured It was at a moving ceremony at Vienna’s UN-City Church on Saturday last week, 21 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, that the largest and best-known underground circle in the former Czechoslovakia – called “Koinótés” and founded by the late Bishop Felix Maria Davidek – received the Herbert-Haag-Foundation Award for Freedom in the Church, which is bestowed annually on persons and institutions “for courageous actions within Christianity”. Read full story here

From USA: With the help of Roman Catholic Medical Mission Sister Miriam Therese Winter, Ludmila Javorová shared the story about her life and ministry. That collaboration became the award-winning book Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmila Javorova Ordained Roman Catholic Priest. It has provided countless numbers of people from around the world with an encounter of her quiet courage and deep service to the church.

From France: a book by scholar Suzanne Tunc: Ludmila Javorova - Histoire de la première femme prêtre En Tchécoslovaquie, d’abord sous occupation nazie (1939-1945) puis soviétique (1945-1989), les catholiques vivent leur foi clandestinement, au risque de leur vie. Les papes successifs reconnaissent et encouragent cette Église, qui se soucie des pauvres et protège les clandestins, notamment les femmes qui, en prison, sont cruellement privées de secours spirituel. C’est pour leur venir en aide qu’en 1970 un évêque de l’Eglise clandestine confère ordonne une femme, Ludmila, comme prêtre. C’est la première fois. La paix revenue, le Vatican déclarera cette ordination invalide. Ainsi, l’institution n’a pas su saisir l’occasion d’avancer vers la modernité, en affirmant dans les faits l’égalité voulue par le Christ entre hommes et femmes. Pourquoi relire cette histoire ? Parce qu’elle est exemplaire d’une question contemporaine brûlante pour l’Église catholique : l’ordination sans discrimination de sexe et la mise en oeuvre de l’universalité du sacerdoce du Christ. Si les travaux universitaires sur cette question sont maintenant nombreux, l’institution catholique reste crispée sur tant d’archaïsmes que les chercheurs ont jugé la cause perdue. Restait à raconter de façon narrative et accessible à tous cette histoire dont les faits sont rapportés par Ludmila elle-même. Il fallait porter au dossier une pièce tout à fait neuve. C’est maintenant chose faite.

Image: courtesy of Alicja Baranowska/WOW

Ludmilla receiving a photo of WOW’s 2022 red parasol action in St Peter’s Square

From Ireland’s Soline Humbert in the news of the Association of Roman Catholic Priests: Farewell to Ludmila Javorová, the banned priest of Brno and symbol of a vocation that Rome did not recognize.

From Religion Digital in Spain: Adiós a Ludmila Javorová, la presbítera prohibida de Brno y símbolo de una vocación que Roma no reconoció "La Iglesia checa la despide como una “personalidad eminente y destacada” de la diócesis de Brno, subrayando una fidelidad que nunca se rompió, ni siquiera cuando Roma declaró inválida su ordenación y le prohibió ejercer públicamente"

Women’s Ordination Worldwide

Founded in 1996, WOW is an international network of groups whose current mission is the inclusion of Roman Catholic women in all ordained ministries.

Founded on the principle of equality, WOW opposes all discrimination.
'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
-Galatians 3:28

Who is WOW?

Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) is an international leader in creative, prayerful action. We bring visibility to the need for equality of women in the Roman Catholic Church.

An international network, WOW draws national and international groups together in common cause to end global discrimination against women in the Church.

WOW now includes nearly 20 reform minded member groups from Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, and USA.

WOW is…

The Future: Working to make real a Catholic Church that includes women in all realms of leadership including ordained priesthood
Active: media voices, international vigils, globally connecting, raising awareness, moving forward, being the change
Spiritual: women's liturgies, vigils, leadership in prayerful action
Promoting: new found respect in the Church for women's gifts and presence and leadership ... and as a consequence, building new respect for the Church