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The following provisional account of Women's Ordination Worldwide will be updated and enlarged in due course.
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A list of our member groups and their websites can be found further down this page.
Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW) was founded in 1996 at the First European Women's Synod in Gmunden, Austria. It is an ecumenical network of national and international groups whose primary mission at this time is the admission of Roman Catholic women to all ordained ministries. WOW is founded on the principle of equality and therefore opposes any discrimination. 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus'. (Galatians 3.28). WOW affirms the God-given diversity of humanity and is committed to providing a model of collaborative, non-hierarchical leadership.
Our aims and objectives, as outlined in our Constitution, are as follows:
- To coordinate, advise and represent the women's ordination movement worldwide.
- To bring together different national and international organisations working towards the ordination of women in all Christian churches.
- To facilitate, through regular international conferences, a public, global forum to raise awareness about the issue of women's ordination within the Roman Catholic Church and to encourage broad-based discussion.
- To support women's equality in religions.
- To free the Church from the sin of sexism and heal divisions between men and women, female and male clergy, and female and male laity.
- To foster the awareness and the development of vocations in women to renewed ordained ministry.
WOW prayer
O Holy One, You who are Creator of all, who made humanity in Your image Saviour of all, who called women and men to witness Your ministry, death and resurrection, Inspirer of all who seek and serve, We thank You for the women You have blessed with Your call to celebrate the Eucharist, to minister alongside their brothers in a renewed Roman Catholic Church. We pray that the Church will soon welcome and nourish to the full the gifts of women as priests, prophets and leaders, knowing, as Mary of Nazareth knew, that with You all things are possible.
In its early years, WOW functioned as a loose network of organisations, who kept in touch by email or through occasional newsletters. The first coordinator was Andrea Johnson (Women's Ordination Conference - USA). In 1998, she was succeeded by Myra Poole (Catholic Women's Ordination - Britain). In 2001, the Irish organisation, Brothers and Sisters in Christ (BASIC), organised and hosted the first WOW international conference, held in Dublin. Keynote speakers in Dublin included Sr. Joan Chittister, John Wijngaards and the Revd. Rose Hudson-Wilkin. The last-named replaced Aruna Gnanadason, of the World Council of Churches, who was forced to withdraw due to pressure from the Vatican.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, lights the WOW candle at the beginning of the first International Conference in Dublin, 2005. Photo reproduced by permission of BASIC (www.basic.ie)
Following the Dublin conference, in July 2001, BASIC acted as coordinator for WOW on a short-term basis until January 2002, when the Austrian branch of the international movement We Are Church (Wir Sind Kirche) took on this role. In July 2002, the WOW International Steering Committee met at Salzburg and drew up a constitution. At this meeting, Marie Bouclin of Canada was asked to be coordinator, and the second international conference, hosted by the Canadian organisation, Catholic Network for Women's Equality, took place in Ottawa in July 2005. Speakers at the Ottawa conference included Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Ruether.
Archives of both conferences, including all the keynote speeches, can be found at the website www.womenpriests.org/wow.
WOW policy and general management are the responsibility of the Steering Committee (SC), which consists of delegates from each member group (a list of these, with links to their websites, can be found at the end of this document). The Steering Committee meets once a year, most recently in Paris (2007, hosted by the French group Femmes et Hommes en Eglise) and in London (2008). The next meeting, also in London, will take place from 14th to 17th May 2009. The present Coordinator (since 2006) is Jennifer Stark (Catholic Women's Ordination - Britain). Contact: wowcoordinator@yahoo.co.uk
We affirm our commitment to dialogue, within and between our member groups, and with other organisations, including our ecumenical partners. Virtually all our member groups include men and women from other Christian traditions, and we celebrate the enrichment of understanding and friendship that results from our work to affirm women as fully human and fully part of God's creation, with all that this vision implies.
We seek to foster unity of purpose among those who share our vision of a renewed ordained ministry for both men and women (married and celibate) that is true to Christianity's biblical roots, within a renewed Roman Catholic Church. Some Catholic women who feel called to ordination have committed themselves, often at considerable personal cost, to waiting for official change in the Church's position. Others, as an act of conscience, and after careful reflection, have felt compelled to respond to their sense of calling from God and their communities and have been ordained, validly but illegally, within the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement (for information on this, please see their website listed below). In addition, a number of women have been ordained within independent Catholic Churches (not Roman), such as the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. WOW honours the courage and commitment of all who walk this difficult path, whatever their choice.
In 1976, the report of the Pontifical Biblical Commission found that there were no Scriptural grounds for denying priestly ordination to women. However, since the publication by Pope John Paul II of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), and the subsequent Responsum ad Dubium issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1995), discussion of Roman Catholic women's ordination has been officially forbidden, and women play no part in the decision-making of a male, celibate, clerical hierarchy. Our work for Catholic women's ordination means finding a way forward where there is no path.
WOW representatives demonstrate in St Peter's Square during the Rome Synod of Bishops (October 2008), before handing in a petition to the Pope, requesting the restoration of the female diaconate. Photo reproduced by permission of the Women's Ordination Conference (www.womensordination.org )
On a number of occasions, the ban on discussion has been reinforced by various penalties, including the threat or sentence of excommunication. In the late 1990s, Father Tissa Balasuriya, an Indian priest, was excommunicated when he refused to withdraw statements made in his book The Eucharist and Human Liberation, including those supportive of women's ordination. In 2006-7, a Canadian priest, Father Ed Cacchia, was removed from his parish for speaking out in support of women's ordination. Those ordained within the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement are excommunicated latae sententiae. Recently, an American Maryknoll priest, Father Roy Bourgeois, who spoke in support of women's ordination and preached the homily at one of the RCWP ordinations, has been threatened with the same sentence.
These actions by the Vatican reinforce the ban on discussion of the issue among committed Catholics who are gravely concerned for the future of pastoral ministry, and do nothing to resolve the core issue. We urge the Church's leaders, clerical and lay, to open up debate on this issue and on other aspects of the Church's systemic discrimination against women which is acknowledged by Pope Benedict himself. At stake here is the Church's integrity and its regard for the primacy of conscience:
'Over the pope, as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before anything else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church'.
Pope Benedict XVI (writing as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Vorgrimler, 1968, on Gaudium et Spes, pt. 1, ch. 1.
Leonardo d Vinci's great masterpiece, The Last Supper, is for many Christians the clearest image they have of Christ's last meal with his disciples. It is often used as an argument against women in ministry: 'But there were no women at the Last Supper'. The Irish organisation BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ) commissioned the eminent Polish artist Bohdan Piasecki to paint the Last Supper as a Jewish Passover meal at which women and children would certainly have been present. See the BASIC website for more about the picture. Image reproduced by permission of BASIC (www.basic.ie)
Member Groups of WOW
AUSTRALIA
Ordination of Catholic Women Australia Inc. (OCW)
OCW Inc. is a national group of women and men who advocate the ordination of women into a renewed ordained ministry in the Catholic Church. We believe that an ordained ministry of both men and women will make the Church's spiritual life richer, more open to understanding the challenges that women, men and children face, and more able to bring God's love and wisdom to the complex problems of our world. OCW seeks opportunities to shape change in the Church and increase the participation of women in church leadership. It supports women's call to ordination through annual conferences, publications, seminars, lectures, media releases and public actions.
CANADA
Catholic Network for Women's Equality (CNWE).
The mission of this Canadian- based organisation is to help women name their giftedness and from that awareness to effect structural change in the Church that reflects the mutuality and co-responsibility of women and men within it.
CNWE fosters solidarity among women by celebrating the contributions of women to the Church and working towards full inclusion of women in all aspects of prayer and ministry, including ordained ministry.
FRANCE
Femmes et hommes en eglise (FHE).
Pour des relations nouvelles dans les Eglises comme en société,
l'association "FEMMES ET HOMMES EN EGLISE" travaille au sein d'un
réseau oecuménique, national et international.
Depuis sa fondation en 1970, FHE propose:
- de promouvoir un mode relationnel de non - domination dans les Eglises
selon le modèle de l'Evangile - de refuser les exclusions et les discriminations liées au sexe
- de participer aux recherches féministes, en particulier sur le "genre"
en Christianisme - de susciter de nouvelles pratiques de co-responsabilité et de
partenariat.
FHE works in ecumenical, national and international settings to create new relationships in the Churches, as in society. Since its foundation in 1970, FHE has been committed to:
- Promoting new relations between women and men according to the Gospel's
prophetic message - Rejecting any kind of domination and discrimination related to sex in
society and in the Churches - Participating in feminist research, especially on gender in Christianity
- Creating new practices of co-responsibility and partnership.
GERMANY
Wir Sind Kirche (We Are Church) Germany
Die KirchenVolksBewegung "Wir sind Kirche" / Germany setzt sich ein für eine Erneuerung der römisch-katholischen Kirche auf der Basis des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (1962-1965) und der darauf aufbauenden theologischen Forschung und pastoralen Praxis. "Wir sind Kirche" ist aus dem 1995 in österreich gestarteten Kirchenvolksbegehren hervorgegangen. Die 1996 gegründete internationale Bewegung "Wir sind Kirche" ist in mehr als 20 Ländern auf allen Kontinenten vertreten und arbeitet mit anderen Reformgruppen zusammen. Die Bewegung versteht sich als "Stimme des Kirchenvolkes".
Die "Aktion Lila Stola" ist eine Arbeitsgruppe von "Wir sind Kirche", die sich speziell für deren 2. Forderung "Volle Gleichberechtigung für Frauen" in der römisch-katholischen Kirche einsetzt.
The "We are Church" movement is working for a renewed Roman Catholic Church on the basis of The Second Vatican Council. It was brought into being after the "Kirchenvolksbegehren" in 1995 and started in Austria. Today the international movement "We Are Church", (IMWAC), founded in 1996, is working in more than 20 countries of all continents and is connected to other reform groups.
The Purple Stole (Lila Stola) movement intercedes for equal access of women to all church ministries and functions, for feminine imagery for God, and liturgies which name and acknowledge the feminine in God and humanity.
www.wir-sind-kirche.de
"Lila Stola" can be found under 'Aktionen'
Maria von Magdala (MVM)
Der Verein "Maria von Magdala - Initiative Gleichberechtigung für Frauen in der Kirche eV." ist eine christliche Frauengruppe und hat den Zweck, die Situation der Frauen in der Kirche grundlegend zu verbessern und eine erneuerte Kirche anzustreben, in der Frauen und Männer in allen Belangen gleichberechtigt sind. (§ 1 der Satzung).
Wir nennen uns nach Maria von Magdala, die in allen Evangelien als wichtige Jüngerin Jesu erwähnt wird und als einzige immer mit ihrem vollen Namen angesprochen wird. Nach Joh 20, 1-18 ist sie nicht nur Zeugin seiner Auferstehung, sondern wird von Jesus als Verkünderin des Glaubens zu den männlichen Aposteln gesandt. Daher führt sie auch den Ehrentitel "Apostelin der Apostel". Ihre Beauftragung zur Glaubensverkündigung durch Jesus selbst macht sie zur Vorreiterin für alle Frauen, die Zugang zu den geweihten ämtern in der römisch-katholischen Kirche fordern.
Maria of Magdala, founded in 1987, is an initiative for equality of women in the church for the purpose of improving the structural situation of women in the Roman Catholic church and of striving for a renewed church in which women and men are equal in all matters.
GREAT BRITAIN
Catholic Women's Ordination (CWO)
CWO is a national group of women and men in the UK (including Scotland and Wales) who seek a renewed model of priesthood in the Catholic Church so that there is proper scope for the distinctive ministry of ordained women within it. Renewal of the Church is our first aim but the importance of women's ministry is integral to that, as is women's leadership within the church.
We support and campaign for women's call to ordination through annual gatherings, publications, lectures/debates, days of recollection, media releases and public actions. We believe that a Church which treats women with equality will greatly alter the demeaning attitude to women which affects so many, especially in poorer parts of the world. Ideology, which has been named as theology in all religions, underpins the reasons for women's poverty worldwide and it is why we are campaigning for change, especially in the Roman Catholic Church. Also a much more egalitarian Church should inspire the young rather than alienate them.
www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk
IRELAND
Brothers And Sisters In Christ (BASIC), founded in 1993, is an Irish-based network of women and men (lay, religious, priests) who feel called to play an active part in building up a Church Community which is freed from the sin of sexism and healed from the divisions between men and women.
BASIC believes in a Church which affirms, proclaims, lives out and makes visible sacramentally God's creation of women and men as equal partners and the Good News of their reconciliation and unity in Christ.
BASIC organised and hosted the first WOW international Conference in Dublin in 2001.
JAPAN
フェベ
2000年3月に発足。 教会における性差別を教会内での不正義の問題として「女性にとりカトリック教会とは」「教会の奉仕職への女性信徒の積極的参加」「教会とジェンダ－」などの勉強会。第二バチカン公会議で示された教会の刷新に向けて意識を深めることを目的にしている。
Phoebe, which started in March 2000, is an awareness raising group to reform our Church, focused on 'what is the Catholic Church for women', 'more active participation of women in the ministries of the Church,' 'Church and gender', as crucial issues of Church and sexism and injustice within the Roman Catholic Church.
Contact: iyori@nao.nifty.jp
USA
Women's Ordination Conference (WOC)
Founded in 1975, the Women's Ordination Conference is the oldest and largest organization that works solely to ordain women as priests, deacons and bishops into an inclusive and accountable Roman Catholic church. WOC represents the 63 percent of U.S. Catholics that support women's ordination. WOC also promotes perspectives on ordination that call for more accountability and less separation between the clergy and laity.
WOC is a feminist Catholic advocacy organization that encompasses the diversity of opinion and action within the women's ordination movement. WOC advocates many paths to ordination by organizing demonstrations, press conferences and forums for dialogue and education, by speaking out against all forms of sexism and oppression in the church and by promoting different theological perspectives on ordination. We collaborate with church reform groups and secular women's rights groups to further our vision of a continually renewing, anti-racist, inclusive and just Roman Catholic church and world.
INTERNATIONAL GROUPS
Housetop: www.womenpriests.org Catholic Internet Library
We are the largest internet site providing information and documentation on the ordination of women. Though we focus on the Roman Catholic Church, our work benefits all Christian Churches. We offer thousands of documents in English and 24 other languages. Our material covers decrees of councils and synods, the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, medieval theologians, recent papal decrees, contemporary articles and ongoing discussions on scripture, tradition and the teaching authority of the Church. We also present picture galleries. One of the most exciting parts of our website is CIRCLES, a message board visited by thousands of visitors a day who either watch or take part in fiery, passionate, wide-ranging and often witty discussions. Come, read for yourself and dig in!
ICETh (International Conference of European Theologians)
ICETh is an association of women theologians which aims to strengthen the theological, spiritual and institutional-political exchange between sisters in Europe. Europe in the 21st century is multi-cultural and multi-religious. To enable the meeting of people with different spiritual, cultural and religious experiences and traditions, theological reflection grounded in the liberating message for women and men of the holy scriptures is necessary. This is why we need a multi-confessional and inter-religious Europe-wide forum of women theologians.
IKETh ist eine konfessionell und religiös offene Gruppe von Theologinnen, die es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht hat, am Anfang des neuen Jahrtausends den theologischen, spirituellen and institutions-politischen Austausch mit Schwestern in Europa zu verstärken. Europa darf nicht nur ein wirtschaftlicher Zusammenschluss werden, sondern soll vor allem ermöglichen, dass Menschen mit unterschiedlichen spirituellen, kulturellen und religiösen Erfahrungen und Traditionen zusammenfinden. Dieser Prozess bedarf der theologischen, an den befreienden Dimensionen der heiligen Schriften orientierten Begleitung. Deshalb ist ein europaweites Forum von Theologinnen notwendig
Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP)
RCWP is an international initiative within the Roman Catholic Church.
RCWP North America
The mission of Roman Catholic Womenpriests North America is to spiritually prepare, ordain, and support women and men from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, who are committed to an inclusive model of Church, and who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to minister within the Roman Catholic Church.
RCWP began with the ordination of seven women on the Danube River in 2002. Reclaiming our ancient spiritual heritage, womenpriests are shaping a more inclusive, Christ-centered Church of equals in the twenty-first century. Women bishops ordained in full apostolic succession continue to carry on the work of ordaining others in the Roman Catholic Church. We advocate a new model of priestly ministry united with the people with whom we serve. We are rooted in a response to Jesus who called women and men to be disciples and equals living the Gospel.
www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org
RCWP Europe-West
We are a small but enthusiastic group and we have a number of excellent
supporters, from various Churches, who often attend our meetings and
show their support in very practical ways. Our ministries cover a wide range: we celebrate the sacraments, especially Eucharist, baptisms, weddings and anointing of the sick and dying. Some of us work with RCWP candidates; one is involved in social ministry and our ordained deacon, Regina L., is very involved in parish ministry. We also maintain our ecumenical contacts, e.g. a close connection with IKETH (Interreligious Convention of European Women Theologians.
Our Regional Administrator is Marleen Wijdeveld of the Netherlands and
Monika Wyss represents us on the WOW Steering Committee. Because our Group lives in various countries in Europe, we can get together only once a year for a weekend, but we use that weekend to the full. In between, Marleen and Monika keep us informed via email.