In 1991 Soline Humbert applied to the bishop to share with him the good news of her vocation.

But it was not good news for the patriarchy. Women with vocations to the priesthood do not exist.

Women are “outside the parameters”. So what is the Spirit saying to the church?

Are women’s voices not to be heard?

Soline’s calling came when she was aged 17, and next month, she will be 70.

She has met a lot of bishops/cardinals. To them, you are talking in the abstract.

Has the pope ever met a woman with a calling?

Women have gone to their graves without their vocations being realised. “We don’t want you.” It is shameful.

Soline was told by a bishop “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Shame used to silence

It is spiritual abuse. At the root of it is power.

Shame is put on women to silence them. No shame is attached to oppression.

Soline was referred to as “that woman with a calling”. They were afraid as a church to hear.

In the early church, Peter had to listen and change.

Our God has no favourites. But today maleness has favourites.

If you speak it can be dangerous and you can be excluded. Clerical abuse survivors are seen as a threat.

Not the perpetrators. It is the same dynamics for women with priestly vocations.

A conference of hope

At the conference in Boreham House (10-11 July 2026), a woman came to Soline and shared her calling to priesthood.

She had had a calling to priesthood since childhood, but had never told anybody about it. She is now 80.

We saw the sign outside Boreham House “Where everything is possible”!

What should we do?

Each person has the responsibility to discern what is mine to do? According to my gifts, my position in life; my opportunities?

The Report from the Vatican Study Group on Women stated, “Many women experience discomfort”.

It is not discomfort! Nor have we heard other women with a vocation say it is a “discomfort”.

It is a wound. A wound in the body of Christ. We are responsible for this and need to help heal it.

Not discomfort, but a wound

It is like the clerical child abuse issue: The bishops said, “We did not know”. There was no urgency to attend to this issue.

A bleeding wound in the body of Christ. We need reconciliation in the body of Christ.

It is a crucifixion.

St Thérèse of Lisieux’s sisters gave a faithful recorded testimony: Thérèse told them a few months before she died that God would take her before the ordinations to spare her the pain of not being ordained at the age of 24.

It is not a “discomfort”. What about women who do not die before 24?

It is a very deep wound – a crucifixion. We can not say we do not know. We do know.

• Colm Holmes is Chair of We Are Church International. He is married to Soline Humbert since 1980.