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Our site is dedicated to the campaign for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic
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Welcome to Catholic Women's Ordination

CWO began in March 1993 as a national (UK) group of women and men who care deeply about the Roman Catholic Church. We want to be a part of building a church community that truly lives the justice demanded by Jesus; a justice which demands that women be equal with men.
 

Women equal with men means not only that women have the opportunity to fulfil their own vocation, but also that the Church community benefits from their experience and their strengths in the ministerial priesthood.
 

We are a forum to examine, challenge and develop the current understanding of priesthood. We aim to achieve the ordination of women to a renewed priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

  


Whatever Happened to Vatican II

CWO held  a meeting on Saturday 12 May to mark the 50 year anniversary of  the start of Vatican II. Part of the outcome was to issue the following statement

 

CWO supports the priests and people of the Irish and Austrian Church in standing against the direction being taken by the Pope and Curia. We join in prayerful solidarity with all in the UK who are disturbed by the way the church is deviating from the path opened to us by Vatican II.

... read more...

 

 

 

CWO Mission Statement


We envision CWO as a movement campaigning within the Church for inclusivity and the radical transformation of kyriarchal* structures. We call for women's perspectives to enrich the Church's thinking and for women's gifts to enrich its ministry.
 

*kyriarchal is a word used by Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, the American scripture scholar to express the interlocking of multiple oppressions from a hierarchical system (e.g. - racism, sexism, classism, etc.)

 


 

We believe:-

  • that all creation is sacred and all women and men are imbued with the spirit of God.

  • in the call to Christian maturity

  • in the power of change and transformation

  • in a just, inclusive, loving Church where the equality of all is respected

  • in leadership emerging from within the community

  • in the call to ordination of both women and men

We commit to:-

  • educating others and ourselves towards a new understanding of what it is to be Church through a feminist theological perspective.

  • supporting and enabling each other on the journey towards an inclusive church

  • affirming one another in each one's vocation

  • exposing patriarchal interpretations of scripture and patriarchal structures

By:-

  • dialogue with our bishops and priests

  • personal study

  • group study

  • seeking financial assistance and encouraging prayerful giving for study and courses

  • networking with relevant groups and organisations

  • information gathering and sharing

  • hearing people's stories and empowering them

  • developing creative liturgies and space for creative expression

  • developing support strategies for example spiritual direction/companionship, telephone trees, E-mail, website

  • buying in administrative support to free members for other tasks

  • encouraging small groups to engage in money raising schemes to fund activities

We commit to:-

  • raising awareness through campaigning, publicity and our visibility

  • not being solely reactive but also being as proactive as we can

  • employing imaginative and creative processes of campaigning, publicising and being visible

  • persevering in order to develop strategies

  • targeting the "No discussion" policy by the Vatican

By:-

  • writing letters to the media in reaction but also to inform

  • using CWO Christmas cards, sending them in particular to Bishops, Catholic MP's, Priests, Nuns and other prominent Catholics

  • using "Funny Money" (cards containing statements that we will withhold money until oppressive structures change) in collections and other appropriate places

  • producing pamphlets, leaflets, stickers and newsletters to distribute as widely as possible

  • speaking to other groups about CWO and its vision for example youth groups, women's groups, study groups

  • entering into dialogue with Bishops locally and nationally

  • taking part in vigils

  • contributing to campaigns and awareness raising on Vocation Sunday

We commit to:-

  • the use of inclusive language in prayer, the mass and other liturgies

  • prayer as an integral part of CWO

  • developing and sharing different forms of liturgy

By:-

  • asking contemplative and active orders to pray for us

  • engaging in public prayer, public witness and public vigil

  • having shared times and shared forms of prayer

  • developing and collecting original liturgies to share

  • removing all sexist and other oppressive language from the liturgy

  • challenging others use of sexist hierarchical and other language

 

Catholic Women's Ordination prayer


Moved by a compulsion of the Holy Spirit
we cannot remain ignorant
of this injustice in our midst.
We long for all humanity
to be acknowledged as equal,
particularly among your community of the church,
so we pray grieving for the lost gifts
of so many women.
We ask you, God of all peoples,
to bring insight and humility
to all those in positions of dominance,
and an understanding that
the ascended Lord called us all to act
doing Christ's work here and now.
We ask this of you,
God our Creator
Jesus our Redeemer
Spirit our Sustainer

Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW!)

WOW is an international group of which CWO is a member. Groups from all over the world are involved in conference planning, letter writing campaigns and public action.

The first WOW conference was held in Dublin in 2001 and the second in Ottowa in 2005. You can find a diary of the WOW 2005 conference here (on our old website). You can visit WOW here.

There is also an archive of WOW material on the Housetop site here www.womenpriests.org/wow/

For a PDF of the constitution of Catholic Women’s Ordination (CWO) please click here