Dorina Pena describes herself as a “church lady supreme.” A founding member of the young adult ministry at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Philadelphia, 38-year...
Women in the church
Explore how women have contributed to the Catholic Church—historically and at present—and the pursuit of gender equity and visibility in church service.
When I was a young adult, I didn’t think I was a feminist. This was not because I didn’t want the same opportunities men had. At the evangelical ranch, camp...
Listen on: Apple | Google | Spotify Radical equality, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or social class, was at the heart of the faith and practice of the early...
Listen on: Apple | Google | Spotify Are we on the path to a more just politics and equitable world? If we are, women are going to lead us there. It’s the...
The following is an excerpt from Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women by Phyllis Zagano (Paulist Press, 2023). It can seem simplistic...
The Mary of my girlhood was modest in every way. She didn’t take up much space or make much noise. Everything about her demeanor proclaimed sexual...
James Joyce is famously quoted as writing: “Catholic means ‘Here comes everybody.’ ” While that may have been the case in Ireland in the 1930s when Finnegans...
Coming up through Catholic schools in New York all her life, Meg Stapleton Smith found herself continually revisiting one question: “What happens to the...
Rising: Learning From Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries By Carolyn Y. Woo, Ph.D. (Orbis Books, 2022) “Dr. Woo, do you think women’s leadership in the...
Listen on: Apple | Google | Spotify “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak...
