Women in Ministry
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Leo’s slavery teaching opens door for women’s ordination
In “Magnificent Humanity,” Pope Leo describes the Church’s condemnation of slavery as a genuine development in doctrine, not a clarification of existing teaching. That admission, echoing Cardinal Newman, creates a powerful precedent for revisiting the supposedly final ban on ordaining women as priests.
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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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Stars emerge at Würzburg’s Catholic Congress
Seventy-five thousand people gathered in Würzburg for Germany’s Catholic Congress, and from the opening thunderstorm Mass to the closing liturgy, moments of courage and candour cut through — a bishop calling for women in all ministries, a student challenging a cardinal, and a synodal partnership that modelled shared power.
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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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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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In the Easter story, women are the first to proclaim the resurrection – but…
Women made up only 14% of U.S. congregation leaders as of 2018-19, despite constituting nearly a quarter of professional clergy. That gap sits uneasily alongside Easter Gospel narratives in which women are the first — and sometimes only — witnesses to the resurrection.
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Paul VI’s emerald ring returns to Canterbury on Mullally’s finger
Mullally wore the emerald ring Paul VI gave to Michael Ramsey in 1966, while a belt buckle from her years as a working nurse was refashioned into the morse clasp of her cope — storied symbols grounding the ceremony in both ecumenical history and a life spent caring for the sick.
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The report Rome buried — and couldn’t keep secret
In 1976, a Vatican commission quietly reached a landmark conclusion on women’s ordination — and Rome quietly buried it. Fifty years later, that suppressed finding is back in focus, raising hard questions about authority, transparency, and what the Church’s own scholars actually said.
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