Gender Equality
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Women’s Synod report longer with less to say
Drawing on Acts 10-15 and real testimony, one Synod group offered open questions and discernment rather than closing the door with a pronouncement.
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Church knows women were deacons — will they admit it?
The real question is no longer whether women served as ordained deacons, but whether the church will reconsider what it has already found.
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Tend the flame
Valuing tradition means keeping its living fire alight. A dynamic tradition fosters maturity and freedom.
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Women’s ordained ministry serves baptised unity — do it now
The first witness to the risen Christ was a woman. Bishop Ludger Schepers argues a Church that honours Mary Magdalene liturgically while barring women from the altar is acting in direct contradiction to its own founding narrative and the witness of Apostle Junia.
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The theological emptiness of the Petrocchi report
Phyllis Zagano’s analysis in America and in Flashes dismantles the Petrocchi Commission’s conclusions on women’s diaconate, showing they rest on no historical, theological, or anthropological documentation.
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Ancient ordination rites for women deacons sit in Vatican
Medieval liturgical manuscripts housed in the Vatican’s own library describe women being ordained to the diaconate during Mass, with the laying on of hands, invocation of the Holy Spirit and the placement of the stole by the bishop. Zagano’s research brings these forgotten rites back into focus.
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“Pure-blood” bishops sound more like Harry Potter than the Gospels
Jesus measured faithfulness by whether people fed the hungry and visited the imprisoned, not by tracing clerical lineage. The doctrine of Apostolic Succession, built on mistranslation and selective memory, distracts from the radical simplicity of the Gospel’s own demands.
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Sexual morality is over-emphasised — Pope Leo
Freedom of religion, equality, justice for men and women — these are the moral questions Pope Leo XIV says the church should be leading on. His pointed critique of the over-emphasis on sexual ethics echoes a growing frustration among Catholics who feel the tradition’s full moral vision has been narrowed and distorted.
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When clericalism becomes narcissism, the altar turns into a stage
Clerical narcissism perpetuates itself when a newly ordained priest is assigned to a pastor who demands unquestioning obedience, creating successive generations of leaders hostile to collaboration.
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From hope to silence: when the Church blinked
A Jesuit bishop reached for a medieval image — bridegroom, bride — to slam the door on women’s ordination. He didn’t stop there. He criticised fellow Jesuit, Pope Francis, for leaving the question open at all. The message was unambiguous: this conversation is over.
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