PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE

​PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE is an audio course that explores the scripture, tradition and history related to the ordination of women as priests in the Roman Catholic Church. The course is designed to be used in parishes, by high schools and college campus ministries, or by any person or group interested in the topic.  

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why this course
& why now
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PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE is being undertaken alongside the Vatican's study on the role of women in the Church. This study was commissioned in March 2024 by Pope Francis as part of the Synod on Synodality, which unfolded from October 2021 to October 2024. While all other study groups were assigned to a group of experts, this topic was assigned to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).

The focus of the study is to essentially investigate how lay women come to lead within a Church structure that is run by an all male hierarchy. Rather than address the root causes of theologized prejudice against women, the study seems interested only in learning about the female exception of success in hopes of being able to replicate it somehow. The DDF will carry out its work and make recommendations to the Pope in June 2025. 

In addition to the study on lay women, Pope Francis restarted the 2020 Commission a female diaconate.  Though priesthood for women continued to surface throughout the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis repeatedly excluded it as an official topic of discussion or study. His decisions violated the values and process of the Synod that he himself approved because he interfered with an honest discernment process, determining the outcome before it was allowed to unfold.

While Pope Francis displays remarkable inner freedom on most things, he has demonstrated time and again that he lacks this grace when it comes the topic of ordination for women. He refuses to admit his spiritual attachment and this refusal is doing a tremendous disservice to women, to the Church and to the Synod process. 

PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE picks up where the Synod leaves off, making accessible and digestible all aspects that the Church needs to honestly and freely discern the invitation from God when it comes to the ordination of women as priests.
 
. Priesthood has been emerging as an open question  for decades. At this point in history, Catholics at every level of the Church--including religious, deacons, priests, bishops, and cardinals--around the world believe that God calls women to be priests.  This divergence is only growing with time. Because the bishops are not universally in communion on this issue, the doctrine cannot be definitively held. The Church continues to be invited by the Holy Spirit to stop denying reality and instead engage the question of ordaining women to priesthood it in an honest discernment. This course is aimed at helping the Church do just that.
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