St. Thérèse of Lisieux the Priest icon by Eric Carson
read about her vocation to priesthood. If you would like a copy of the prayer card, please email your address to speakupinthesynod@gmail.com. "When she realised that she had pulmonary tuberculosis, she said: ‘You see, God is going to take me at an age when I would not have had the time to become a priest…. If I could have been a priest, I would have been ordained at these June ordinations. So what did God do? So that I would not be disappointed, he let me be sick: in that way I could not have been there, and I would die before I could exercise my ministry’.” In other words, she believed God let her die rather than suffer life under the burden of being unable to live out her vocation as priest as God was calling her. |
#GodSaysNow CampaignOrdination
not Subordination! The goal of the #GodSaysNow campaign is to make the issue of women's ordination to priesthood issue impossible for the bishops to ignore.
RAISE AWARENESS.
There are literally hundreds of millions of people around the world who believe women are called to be priests, yet they are unaware that the issue is open for discernment through the Synod on Synodality that ends in June 2025. The first step is alerting people to the opportunity that God has placed before us. EDUCATE ON THE ISSUE. The Church constructs its argument of exclusion: (1) by employing a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture--a practice the Church actually teaches against because it leads to views contrary to the Gospel; and (2) by perpetuating a misleading narrative about the participation, leadership and ordination of women over the Church's 2000-year history. INTEGRITY IN THE SYNOD PROCESS The role of women in the Roman Catholic Church emerged from the Synod on Synodality as a prominent issue for discernment. However, for a proper discernment to take place, the Church must bring integrity into the discernment process. This involves two things. First, the Church must use the proper question for discernment regarding ordination. Currently the Church seems to be asking the question, "Can the Church ordain women?" However, this question is faulty in that it centers the discernment on the Church, rather than on God's action in the Church and world. The better question is, "Is God calling women to ordained ministries in the Church?" This phrasing makes the Holy Spirit the protagonist, and invites a fresh look at the relevant scripture, tradition, lived experience, and signs of the times. In addition to the implementation of the proper question, all relevant information related to the question of women's ordination must be welcomed into the Synod process. This includes the following information, which has been thus far missing:
While the Church has invested great resources into claiming priesthood for women is closed, the synod has revealed in two short years that it isn't (see paragraph 64 in the document Enlarge the Space of Your Tent). Indeed, it never was. The Church must set aside its narrative about women's ordination to priesthood, and confront the reality of WHAT IS if the Church is to discover the invitation from God and follow it. |