Women in the Catholic Church

The declaration below was released after a landmark women’s forum was held July 25, 2015 at Chicago Theological Seminary.

Declaration on Women in the Catholic Church

As the Catholic church strives to cultivate a faith rooted in human dignity and equality, we are aware that women in the church are neglected, cast aside, abused and dismissed.

This is a link to a marvellous article from Global Sisters Report, giving the history of almost two centuries of struggle between American Nuns and Church Male authority, local bishops in the earlier years, and the Vatican more recently.

I have great admiration for the U.S. sisters in the way they handled their recent dealings with the CDF.  But I realised from this article that they have years of experience, and have developed a skill and a political savvy that is hard to resist.

Recently, the Irish Times religious correspondent, Patsy McGarry, wrote an article based on a couple of my pieces here in this blog. One issue he raised was what I said here about the question of whether Mary had other children besides Jesus. It had come up in the readings of a recent Sunday Mass. I had suggested that the teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary came out of the early Church rejection of sexuality, and contributed to the narrow attitudes that have come down to our day.