Catholic Women's Ordination
Challenging Institutional Misogyny in the Roman Catholic Church
VIDEO & AUDIO RESOURCE
International Women's Day
8th March 2023
Sr Mary Jo McElroy and Katharine Salmon
(Hosted by Root and Branch)
What if…
What if....
Mary, Founder of Christianity
Dr Chris Maunder
1st October 2022
Presentation pdf
CWO in the media
Catholic Womens Ordination
BBC Points West 12 May 2019
CWO celebrated 20 years of campaigning on
24 March 2013, one of the coldest days of the year!
The struggle goes on.
“I Still Have Joy” and “Amazing Grace”
arranged by Peter Amidon, in his collection
“Fifty-Five Anthems for the Small Church Choir” – http://www.amidonmusic.com
Pat Brown discussing Pope Francis on BBC News (2013)
Pippa Bonner on BBC News
What if…
Women called
Pippa… My calling ordained ministry in a reformed Roman Catholic Church
Pippa… What form I hope my ministry would take
Olive… My vocation to ordained ministry
Olive… I pray in difficult places,
I feel the pain of being rejected
Katharine… Why I came to CWO
The Sin of Sexism
Jillian Dempsey talks about the injustice of excluding women from ordained ministry and how that exclusion denies women’s gifts to the Church.
Lala explains the significance of wearing purple
Pat… Why I’m in CWO – a justice issue that women can’t test their call to priesthood.
Tim… CWO is a justice issue for me.
You can’t leave out half the human race.
Pat… Institutional misogyny and how women
especially in developing world are affected
Michael speaks about how he has been inspired to campaign for women priests. He speaks of the early church when women and men were equally involved in ministry.
Origin of CWO and why people are part of this movement
Lala speaks of the beginnings of CWO and how her experience of drama has informed her development of meaningful liturgy.
Pippa Bonner… Why I joined CWO
Myra tells of the start of our movement.
“There’s a whole fault line in the Roman catholic church about women”
Spiritual sustenance and liturgy in CWO
Pat… CWO as spiritual sustenance
Pippa… Why I’m in CWO – spiritual sustenance
Pat… Sustained at Church by laity
– inspirational liturgies
Lala discusses the liturgy
CWO Theology
Katharine… Jesus’ attitude to women
and women in the early church
Katharine… Women Doctors of the Church
Pat… Course in Women’s ministry
organised by Leeds CWO
Myra discusses the book Making All Things New
Women’s Ordination Worldwide
Pat Brown on WOW
Our foremothers
Ianthe Pratt has been involved in the Feminist movement in this country for many years. She ran The Association for Inclusive Language in the Liturgy.
In an interview in 1993 (CWO’s founding year) she was reported in the Catholic Herald saying she was certain there would be women priests. “I don’t believe you should deny someone something on the grounds of biology”. Ianthe has been and continues to be an inspiration to us all.
Una Kroll was trained as a surgeon, later became a nun and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1993 after decades of campaigning for equality for women in religious organisations.
She then became a Roman Catholic to fight for justice for Roman Catholic women called to priesthood. She is also author of many books on feminism and spirituality including Flesh of My Flesh.
Eileen…
…a woman’s lifelong story of what influenced her within the Catholic Church and organisations, including CWO.
In her 90s, Eileen Sikorski recalls some of the influences on her faith journey. This spans links with St Joan’s Alliance (founded in 1911 advocating women’s equality in the church) and CWO. She keenly supports CWO locally, regrets that she did not say more about it on the video and is known to many CWO members nationally with whom she has campaigned over the years in faith groups . She illustrates that age does not dampen her enthusiasm and inspires many of us to continue CWO’s work.