Dear WATAC members and friends,
It is with deep sadness that I share the news of the death of our beloved friend and founding member, Bernice Moore AO, who died peacefully on 1 January 2026 at St Vincent’s Retirement Village (John Paul Village) in Heathcote. We extend heartfelt sympathy to all who knew Bernice personally. I particularly want to acknowledge Margaret Keyes, whose faithful weekly visits brought comfort and companionship to Bernice in her final years.
Bernice’s influence on WATAC—and on the movement for gender equality and justice in the Australian Church—cannot be overstated. As a founding member she served as national president for fifteen years and later as full-time coordinator of WATAC NSW until her retirement in 2003. Her outstanding commitment was recognised through a garden party held that same year in her honour, and she continued to serve WATAC voluntarily for another fifteen years. In 2021, we proudly awarded her Life Membership, a testament to her decades of advocacy, scholarship, and leadership.
Bernice was a woman of deep conviction, passionate about equality, peace, justice, and the dignity of every person. Her legacy will continue to inspire our work for many years to come.
A Mass of Remembrance for Bernice Moore will be celebrated at St Scholastica’s Chapel, 2 Avenue Road Glebe 11.00am, Sunday 8 March 2026. The Mass will be live streamed. Check the WATAC website for details.
Our next WATAC Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, 16 May. This gathering is a vital opportunity for us to celebrate our achievements, reflect on our challenges, and chart the course for the year ahead. Further details available in this issue of WATAC News.
WATAC thrives because of the generosity, creativity, and passion of our members. As we prepare for the AGM, I warmly encourage you to consider nominating for the WATAC Committee.
We are seeking members who:
care deeply about feminist theology, justice, and reform within the Church
have time and energy to contribute to a collaborative leadership team
want to help shape WATAC’s programs, advocacy, and community engagement
bring gifts in areas such as governance, communications, liturgy, event planning, pastoral care, or administration
Whether you’re a long-time member or newly involved, your voice matters. Serving on the committee is a meaningful way to honour the legacy of leaders like Bernice Moore by continuing the work they began. If you’re even slightly curious, please reach out—we would love to talk with you about what committee involvement looks like.
As we enter this new season, may we carry forward Bernice’s spirit of courage, compassion, and determination. May her memory inspire us to keep imagining and building a Church where women’s gifts are recognised, honoured, and celebrated.
Blessings
Andrea Dean
For the last year and a half since Bern has been in the Nursing Home at John Paul Village, St Vincent’s Care I visited her most weeks on a Monday and brought her the Sydney Morning Herald. She liked the Monday one for the TV program. I also brought her other things she might need, and always chocolates. She only had a few visitors.
When I visited Bern on the 22nd of December, she had taken a turn for the worse. I could only sit and hold her hand and talk to her as she peacefully rested. The nurse told me to keep talking to her as she could hear me but could not communicate. Every now and then she would move her head towards me and move her hand. It was very hard to watch her like this. I kept trying to think of things to say. I had the paper, so I read articles, especially the cricket news. The Ashes were on against England. She loved the cricket and told me once that as a girl she went to the cricket with her dad.
I rang my sister Agnes, who came with me on Wednesday to visit Bern. Agnes is a Good Samaritan sister, and she lived and taught with Bern in Brisbane and Victoria. It was nice to have her sit with me and talk to Bern about their times teaching together. Every now and then nurses would come in and sit with us which was lovely.
I visited Bern for a couple of hours in the morning on New Years Day – Bern passed away at 7 pm that night. A beautiful Mass was said for Bern the next day by the Parish Priest of Don Bosco Parish, Fr Jose Pazheparambil. I arranged for several Engadine WATAC members to
attend and there were so many others present to who knew Bern. Wonderful connections through the life of an incredible woman.
This reflection was written by Margaret Keyes and printed with permission.
exposing Vatican deceptions about the decision on women deacons
The Synodal process has been hijacked. One of the main discussion points throughout the Synod was the urgent need to increase women’s access to church ministries, with indications that the prospect of restoring women deacons was a real possibility. Instead, a committee of 10 Vatican insiders—plus not one, but two Popes—decided against it.
This is evidence that Catholics everywhere—even Synodal participants themselves—have been kept in the dark. Below is a forensic examination of all the machinations to deceive and deny women’s role in the church and how the Vatican has lied about their decision-making process. Including the difficult question we have to ask:
Did this story of subterfuge come about because Pope Francis did not want the sexism behind
the decision to ruin the ‘spirit of synodality’?
But first and foremost, the claim that women were not sacramentally ordained as deacons is false. The historical evidence should not be denied. So why is the Vatican allowing members of the latest papal study commission on women deacons to repeat that line?
The Vatican has created their own version of history but here is the truth:
historical documents (such as the 8th century codex Barberini Gr 336 [Barb.gr.336, held in the Vatican Library itself and fully digitalised]) confirm that rites for the ordination of women deacons exist which contained the ritual features exclusively used for ordinations to the so-called “major” orders of the diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopate (as distinct from the ordination rites to the minor orders such as porter, lector, etc.).
Specifically, those ordinations of women as deacons took place in the sanctuary, in front of the altar and during the Eucharistic Liturgy immediately after the Anaphora and included the imposition of the bishop’s hands – all elements unique and identical to the ordination of male deacons, presbyters, and bishops.
Accordingly, those women received an ordination to the “major” orders equivalent to
their male counterpart: a ‘sacramental’ ordination, in today’s theological language.
If their ordination rite was ‘not sacramental’, neither was the analogous rite used for male deacons, and those—containing the very same features unique to ordinations to major orders—used for male priests and bishops.
historical precedent alone is enough to justify the reinstatement of the sacramental ordination of women as deacons: if it was done in the past, it can be done again.
And, in fact, it has been done: the Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe sacramentally ordained a woman deacon in 2024. It is a practice which is still alive and ongoing.
In December 2025, the Vatican announced its stance on women deacons, under the pretense that it was a recent development that they were eager to share with their constituents.
Unfortunately, this was a charade – below is a timeline of this deception:
The Commission on the Female Diaconate, chaired by Cardinal Petrocchi, had already voted against the possibility of allowing the sacramental ordination of women as deacons in its second session in July 2022!
With that session, they answered the very question they had been set up to answer, thereby fulfilling their mandate. This is indicated by the fact that after that vote, the commission did not hold any additional sessions for more than two years, suggesting it regarded its task as completed.
That only changed in October 2024 when, under pressure from the participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), publicly stated to the synod that Cardinal Petrocchi confirmed to him that his commission “will resume [work] in the coming months”.
However, Cardinal Fernandez then went on to admit that, based on the work of the Petrocchi commission (which took into account the work of the previous commission from 2016), “the dicastery judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate.” This is an accidental public acknowledgement by the Vatican of the conclusion reached by the Petrocchi commission already in its second and hitherto final session of July 2022.
It is scandalous that Cardinal Fernandez did not explain that the dicastery’s judgment was in fact based on the conclusion the papal commission had reached more than two years earlier, and that such a conclusion had been kept secret for more than two years even from participants to the synod on synodality during 2023 and 2024, despite an explicit request from the synod to see the relevant findings and documentation of the Petrocchi commission.
The Vatican needs to be held accountable for pretending to examine a topic close to the hearts of the majority of Catholics.
This is part of an article by Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri first published in Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research on 17 December 2025. The full article can be found here. Reprinted here with permission.
With the Vatican’s recent pronouncement that there can be no female diaconate because women’s bodies cannot image Christ, how are women to stay in a Church that so fiercely demeans them?
Synodality is not so much about doing as it is a way of being. It starts with humility and patience and the inner silence of deep listening. Surely, we are all capable of this?
Synodality is a new word for holiness. There is no excuse for us to run away or hide from it. Pope Francis and now Pope Leo call us to a deeper way of holiness, reclaimed from the practices of the early church. It is alien to our contemporary culture which prizes speed and efficiency and thrives on an unending diet of noise and distraction. More disturbingly, it is also alien to a still prevailing church culture of patriarchal and hierarchical clericalism.
Both these cultures are a threat to synodality. However, for someone like me who feels called to help reform the church from within, it is the prevailing church culture which is the far more pressing challenge. In the words of Pope Francis in another context, we all need to change and “set out on the long path of renewal.” But how does one stay the course on this long path of renewal, particularly if you are, like me, a woman who feels hurt and betrayed by the way the Vatican has handled the question of the female diaconate. (The story of that secretive and frankly duplicitous process can be found on the website of the Wijngaards Institute at https://www.wijngaardsinstitute.com/petrocchi_commission_women_deacons/ where we see synodality itself betrayed and women once more regarded as inferior.)
In the wake of the Vatican announcement on 4 December, I decided to revisit Gerald Arbuckle’s Abuse and Cover-Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma, published in 2019. In the early days of the Plenary Council Sr Clare Condon had recommended it as a way of understanding how fiercely cultures resist change. It is one of those books where every sentence feels like gold. For Arbuckle, reform is too slight a word for what is needed. The church needs to refound by returning to the founding experience of the church by Christ. This is a transformative faith journey, without quick fixes. The alternative is paralysis or a retreat into fundamentalism. Arbuckle has a very clear idea of where the church should be going and the structural reforms and attitudinal changes needed in the process. His final chapter provides a blueprint for refounding that makes for interesting reading.
But what I need is sustenance and Arbuckle does not disappoint. I find what I am looking for in his description of the qualities to be found in a refounding person. Number one: faith-stubbornness. Oh what a gift that word is! I must surely have it or I would have walked long ago. This is what I must cherish and nurture above all. In that one word, faith-stubbornness, is perhaps all the nourishment I need to steel my resolve to keep labouring in the vineyard. But Arbuckle gives me much more that I can work with, to deepen that faith-stubbornness and strengthen its resilience. In short, these are the qualities of refounding persons:
If these are the characteristics of refounding persons, then I find myself at home here. But if the Catholic Church is home to me, it is nevertheless a home I’m ashamed of and where I don’t want to invite others in. The buildings are collapsing, are in need of serious renovation, and it is not a safe place for women. But this is where the Spirit calls me to labour, with synodality the vision to guide me. The refounding that synodality offers is the real hope of the Church. If only more people could become convinced of that, particularly our priests and bishops!
In the meantime, I will be exercising faith-stubbornness.
This article was written by Patricia Gemmell and circulated by the Council of Australasian Catholics (formerly ACCCR) on 16th January, 2026. Reprinted here with permission.
This is a new low in Catholic theology
Pope Leo XIV ordered the release of the Summary of the Study Commission on the Female Diaconate last week, marking a new low point in Catholic theology. The second commission that convened on the ordination question, whose work has been opaque, decided that women cannot be deacons, either as the lowest of three orders (deacon, priest and bishop) or even apart from this model. And just for good measure, the commission dredged up the previous ban on women priests – as if anyone had forgotten it.
The report is a sketchy piece of work that leaves many questions unanswered. Who voted for what? Why does a tie vote on a topic mean the status quo rules? And who, if anyone, is tasked with moving things forward? The study’s method as outlined does not inspire confidence that this group had any particular insights into the issues at hand. While the commission’s suggestion that it’s actually the nature of the diaconate in need of further study—not just the role of women—could be promising. But given the deep misogyny and widespread fear of change in evidence here, any such project seems doomed from the outset.
According to the report:
The status quaestion is of historical research and theological investigation, as well as their mutual implications, rules out the possibility of moving in the direction of admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders. In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the Church’s Magisterium, this assessment is strongly maintained, although it does not at present allow for a definitive judgment to be formulated, as is the case with priestly ordination.
As deacon proponent Phyllis Zagano wrote, “The long report does not present evidence or a theological argument, only the opinion that more study is needed. In short, they cannot say ‘no,’ they simply do not want to say ‘yes.’” The commission frames its decision as an either/or between diaconal ordination as the first of three orders—deacon, priest, bishop—or diaconal ordination as a separate line of service, reinstituting the way some historians have found that women in the early church served. But according to this commission’s vote, neither way provides a path forward to women deacons.
I’m appalled by what they said, as well as by their inability to say that the reason women cannot be ordained deacons is because they’re not men. Women are not biologically male. In 2025, Catholic theology still requires a penis for full personhood. Let that sink in.
Before he was Leo XIV, Robert Prevost studied at Chicago Theological Union. Upon his election, the New York Times asked some of his CTU classmates about Robert’s participation in efforts to highlight women’s ordination. “‘There were guys that were willing to participate and there were guys that were very quiet,’ recalled the Rev. Fred Licciardi, who was ordained as a deacon at the 1981 ceremony. ‘He was one of the more quiet ones.’”
I fear that he’s still one of the quiet ones. And the commission’s decision tells us that the Church still considers women theologically and practically inferior to men. I have long favoured not ordaining anyone because ordination (as presently understood) creates a hierarchy of power and authority rather than a network of ministers. But if the Church insists on continuing ordination as such, ordaining women to the diaconate could be a small step toward acknowledging the enormous role women play in Catholic ministry. More than that, it would be a global statement about human equality. Ordination to the diaconate, even if it isn’t a step toward priesthood, could be a step toward women being employed as ministers (though a lot of male deacons are also unpaid), having access to church-funded theological education as men do, being eligible for pensions, and being seen as fully human.
Even this possibility would continue to privilege men at every turn, as men may choose their forms of ministry from a smorgasbord while women would be consigned to a single choice. Women would be expected to be grateful for these crumbs from the tables at which they should be presiding because, at base, they are not equal to men. But this Commission could not even permit this option – a sure sign that women’s subordination to men is a deeply held patriarchal Catholic belief.
Despite the rhetoric of synodality and the many and varied discussions of women’s ministry that emerged in the Synod sessions, the Magisterium of the Church—the Pope and the bishops—remains solely responsible for decisions of this sort. The rest, as the recent Synod once again demonstrates, is window dressing. The institution fears that a female nose under the tent would upend the patriarchal house of cards that is the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. And, well it might.
A look at the fine print and hints of what wasn’t said in the study’s decision might be worse than what was said. The commission’s president, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of Aquila, Italy, offered disturbingly vague comments to Pope Leo. It should also be emphasised that the various commissions were unanimous in pointing out the need to expand ‘communal spaces’ so that women can participate adequately and share responsibility in the church’s decision-making bodies, including through the creation of new lay ministries.
The phrase “new lay ministries” is ecclesial-speak for other ways to continue women’s mostly unpaid labour in the church. This theological sleight of hand could create a sort of women’s auxiliary. They might be called deaconesses – but they would be unordained women who would do the daily work of pastoral ministry like visiting the sick and feeding the hungry, leaving priests to preside at the Eucharist, preach, forgive sins, and make most of the meaningful decisions.
The reality is that women in the U.S. and many other countries already do this without ordination. It is precisely the problem, not the solution. Thank you, no, gentlemen.
This sort of consolation prize for women is a thoroughly unacceptable extension of the status quo. It would be a cheap way of trying to placate women and supportive men by concocting some pseudo-clerical role for women and changing sweet-nothing about who actually makes decisions in and for the Church.
A reasonable person might ask why anyone still cares, why women would want to minister in a church which clearly does not want them. Answers vary from the glaringly obvious fact that many women are moved to ministry by the urgent needs of an unjust and often uncaring world. Some report a desire to fulfill what they name a “calling” to ministry, be it sacramental, pastoral care, and/or social justice. Still others want to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors in naming what they do as Catholic and using the resources of that tradition to serve others. Ministry is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
Regardless of motivation, there’s something blatantly wrong with the thinking that cements women’s secondary status in the Catholic Church. These are matters that theologians debated 50 years ago. Today, the prejudices have been so thoroughly debunked that there’s nothing left to argue. Imagine someone in law or medicine trying to argue in 2025 that fully qualified women, often the best and brightest students, cannot practice their chosen professions because of their gender.
Sub rosa sexism is still rampant in every profession. But setting up committees and pronouncing for all the world that women are subordinate and therefore cannot serve is simply ludicrous. Have they no shame?
Admission that women are equal to men (and non-binary people are equal to both) is a step too far for Leo’s Vatican. Granted, the Commission functioned under Pope Francis, who made it clear that he was not going to budge on the question of ordained women. But by publishing this report, Leo takes responsibility for this debacle. I have every confidence that women worldwide will remind him and his colleagues of that fact early and often.
I have studiously refrained from commenting during the first six months of Leo XIV’s pontificate because I think he deserved time and space to get acclimated. After all, the move from being an expat missionary bishop in a developing country to being the CEO of a global religious corporation requires more than a new driver’s license and a few new frocks and shoes.
But Leo tipped his hand on October 25, 2025, in a speech to “Participants on the Jubilee of the Synod Teams and Participation Bodies” when asked about the ordination of women. He made quite clear that he was not going to rock the boat. He referred to the 1970s, when he said that there was “much talk in the US…about equality between men and women…”
He started with a joke about his mother, saying she didn’t want equality because she felt that women were “already better.” He reminded me of Pope Francis who often began his comments on women with bad jokes and/or references to his Abuelita Rosita, Grandmother Rosie. He considered women theologians to be “the strawberries on the cake.” To trivialize things with these folksy anecdotes is an inauspicious start.
Pope Leo went on to say, “we can’t simply assume that by appointing a woman here or there to this or that position, she will be respected, because there are strong cultural differences that create problems.” Indeed. But it’s the Vatican, and not some distant developing country, that bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for shaping misogynist culture. As the new statement against women deacons makes clear, human equality is not a Catholic value in any culture.
I can confirm that there was indeed a lot of talk about women’s equality in the 1970s, and it continues. The historic gathering in 1975 that became the Women’s Ordination Conference garnered worldwide attention, though the then-Robert apparently missed it. But the now-Leo seems to think that the discussion was a one-off, a passing theological fad. He studied theology at the same time I did. The conversation has not gone away. It has intensified and diversified into a global conversation in most religious traditions, many of which now include women (and increasingly also non-binary people) in their leadership. While women who look like me—white, cis, North American—may have started the ball rolling, today women in religious leadership, ordained and unordained, come from virtually every racial, ethnic, and geographic group.
With reports like the recent one, Roman leaders continue to dither. They breadcrumb their community members into thinking that one distant day things might change if they only give them more time to study the matter. I respectfully report to Pope Leo and colleagues that that ship sailed.
In 2025, women deacons aren’t new under the sun. Notwithstanding recent Vatican efforts at rapprochement with Orthodox leaders in Turkey, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria in Harare, Zimbabwe, ordained Deaconess Angelic Molen in May of 2024. The Anglican Church just named the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Sarah Mullally. So now Rome goes it alone in a ridiculous, embarrassing, unconscionable, and cowardly display of patriarchal hubris in the face of a growing ecumenical consensus about human equality, including in ministry.
Fifty years ago, on Thanksgiving weekend in November of 1975, over 1200 people—overwhelmingly women—gathered in Detroit for a conference to discuss women’s ordination. Additional space had to be created in the hotel to accommodate the overflow crowd in an upper room, reminiscent of biblical stories of Jesus’ followers. Episcopalian women had just been ordained, albeit irregularly, in July of 1974, prompting Roman Catholic women to imagine, if not assume, that our women would be next, and soon. That conference spawned an eponymous organisation that has engaged creatively in study, practice, parody, and protest to make women’s ordination happen.
Women’s Ordination Conference collaborates with a number of groups, including Roman Catholic Womenpriests and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, whose members are validly (if illicitly) ordained. Catholic women ordinands incur the penalty of excommunication from the Roman crowd, though no one seems to notice when it comes to benefitting from their many and fruitful ministries. Women’s Ordination Worldwide, Discerning Deacons, and many national groups carry this same agenda.
Fifty years later, WOC will be back in Detroit in May of 2026 to assess the meaning of its half-
century struggle and to strategize about next steps. One thing for sure is that the failure to include women in ordained ministry of any sort—diaconate, presbyterate, episcopacy, or its own thing—is a major reason why participation in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has plummeted.
Today, barely a quarter of U.S. Catholics attend mass on a regular basis. Many have long since taken their leave for greener spiritual pastures. Given this latest decision by the Study Commission (and the long standing data linking decisions like this one to disaffiliation), I predict that many more Catholics will look for wisdom and spiritual care well beyond the confines of the Magisterium until the Pope and bishops are left talking to themselves while the work of ministry goes on without them.
This article was written by Mary Hunt and was published in Religion Dispatches on December 15, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
and needs updating, says Mary McAleese
Some Catholic Church teaching “is rancid, has gone off and needs to be updated”, former president Mary McAleese has said. “But it’s not going to be updated by a bunch of, a tiny and increasingly small number of celibate male ordained bishops,” she added. There were “lots of wonderful young women who would make a great job of priesthood and of diaconate” with “lots of intellectual energy that could really inform church teaching”, she said. Instead of this, there was “pushback against the ordination of women, whether it’s as deacons or as priests.” This, she said, was “as strong today among the hierarchy, among the magisterium of the church, as it ever was.”
Last month a report from a Vatican commission reiterated its ban on women deacons in the church. A deacon can perform all the functions of a priest except hear confessions or celebrate the Eucharist. Pope Leo was “no champion of women, unfortunately, and that’s tragic”, said McAleese. Women look at that “and say: ‘You’ve got a problem of relevance here, you’ve got a problem of credibility here, and you don’t see it’”. The new pope “looks to me more like a stopgap than a reformer”, she said.
McAleese was speaking in a podcast with Mollie Rodgers and Kathryn Reynolds, who are students at her former school St Dominic’s in Belfast. She was also critical of a document presented to church representatives attending a Synod on Synodality in Kilkenny last October. It was “so boring, and depressing and trite and Pollyannish and not really related to the world of faith that I live in. The dynamism wasn’t there that I would love to see, that could galvanise the church and probably is not going to during Leo’s lifetime anyhow.”
On Friday, clarifying what she meant by “rancid” teachings in the church, McAleese said she was referring in particular to its teachings on human sexuality, the ban on artificial means of contraception in its 1968 “Humanae Vitae” document, and the ban on women deacons and women priests. She “doesn’t know” Leo but finds him “enigmatic” and believed he was elected last May as “a safe pair of hands, to continue with the same old witter as a cover for doing nothing”. She believed Leo “was deliberately chosen to follow the Pope Francis line on immigrants, the poor, climate and the environment”, while disregarding those other issues.
This article was written by Patsy McGarry and published in The Irish Times on 31st January 2026. Reprinted with permission.
One of the most dangerous things in theology, I believe, is to make the images by which we attempt to understand the mysteries of Christianity into ideas that are literally true.
As the U.S. theologian Reinhold Niebuhr famously said, we need to take symbols seriously, but we cannot take them literally. For example,
Christ does not literally sit at the right hand of the Father
God does not have a body, and even though Jesus spoke of God as “Father”
God’s fatherhood cannot be the same as human fatherhood, for God is not male
We speak of the fire of Hell and Purgatory, but I can’t imagine any theologian today who would understand it as a fire that we know as human beings
We speak of the Eucharist as the Body of Christ, but the doctrine of “real presence” is not a physical presence but the presence of the risen, glorified body of Christ—a sacramental presence much more “real” than we can ever imagine.
The bride of Christ
In the same way, we speak of the church in female images. Israel is imaged, for example by the prophet Ezekiel (Chapter 16), as God’s bride, and in Ephesians 5:25-27 as the bride of Christ.
Church and papal documents use female images and pronouns for the church—for example, the Second Vatican Council’s document “Ad Gentes” famous line that “the pilgrim church is missionary by her very nature.” And the liturgy almost always speaks of the church as a “she.”
In Eucharistic Prayer II, for example, we pray that God remember the church “scattered throughout the world and bring her to the fullness of charity.”
But speaking in this way is to use an image. The church is not female. The church is not a “she.”
The Second Vatican Council images the church in many ways. The church is certainly—literally—the People of God (although that is also an allusion to the image of the church as the New Israel), but the council also speaks of the church as,
the body of Christ
a temple of the Spirit
a field
a building
a flock
a vineyard
Jerusalem
our mother
Christ’s spouse (see “Lumen Gentium“).
As the text itself says—these are metaphors. The church is, but of course it is not!
Metaphors lead us into Mystery, but they do not capture the Mystery itself. As we all know, Juliet is not the rising sun!
The Vatican Study Group
Speaking of the church literally as “she” is only one of the several major flaws of the Sept. 18 document issued by the Vatican Study Group on women’s diaconate, but, to my mind, it is a fatal one.
The document states that a strong theological opinion insists that women being ordained to the sacramental diaconate would jeopardise “the nuptial meaning of salvation” and the “spousal meaning of the three levels of” the Sacrament of Order.
What the Study Group has done is to take literally the image of the church as the bride of Christ, and in that way necessitating the importance of the maleness of Jesus (which is doctrinally misleading, since the formulas refer only to the Word becoming “human” and “flesh”).
The church is not a “she.”
A better argument needed
As Linda Pocher, a critic wrote of the document, if one is to continue to exclude women from the diaconate, one should at least come up with a better argument!
This article was written by Stephen B Bevans, SVD and published in Flashes of Insight on 3rd February 2026. Reprinted with permission.
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Now called the Catholic Health Association of India, CHAI comprises more than 3,500 healthcare and social service member institutions across India. Thousands of Sisters from various congregations, including more than 1,000 Sister doctors, are at the heart of CHAI’s team of full-time volunteers, and work with healthcare professionals in the network.
First woman religious doctor
Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart, as Mary Glowrey was known, was the first Catholic religious nun to also practise as a doctor. She received permission from Pope Benedict XV in 1920, 16 years before Canon Law allowed other women religious to do the same. In her 37 years of service, Sister Mary oversaw the treatment of hundreds of thousands of patients and the construction of a hospital. She established healthcare training and laid the groundwork for a Catholic medical college in India.
Early years
Mary Glowrey was born in 1887 in a small town in the Australian state of Victoria. Her grandparents were Irish immigrants and the Glowrey family was part of a widespread rural community. The Glowreys were devoutly Catholic and Mary had a loving relationship with her parents and five siblings.
Mary’s intellect, love for God and sensitivity were evident from a young age. At age 13, she left home to complete her secondary and tertiary education through scholarships in Melbourne, more than 300 km away. Mary regarded medicine as her first vocation, having prayed for guidance as to what to study. In 1910, at a time when many viewed the medical profession as unsuitable for women, Mary graduated with a degree in medicine and surgery. In the following decade, she became a successful doctor and eye specialist in Melbourne.
Inspiration from another female doctor
In October 1915, Mary read a biography of Dr Agnes McLaren (1837-1913), a Scottish pioneering physician and Catholic convert. At the start of the twentieth century, Dr McLaren sought to address the suffering of women in India. Local custom prohibited them from consulting male doctors, and few female doctors worked in the country. Dr McLaren established a mission charity in London and a small hospital in Rawalpindi, and petitioned the Holy See that women religious Sisters be granted permission to serve as doctors.
Called to India
After reading about Dr McLaren, Mary experienced her calling to medical missionary service in India. For more than four years she quietly discerned this vocation. Her departure was delayed due to the First World War as well as the need for permission to serve as a doctor and Sister. During this time, in addition to the demands of her regular work in hospitals and private practice, Mary served as the founding president of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild in Melbourne from 1916 to 1918. In 1919, she completed her doctorate in medicine.
In January 1920, Mary travelled to Guntur in India, in the region now known as Andhra Pradesh. There, she joined the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph (JMJ), a Dutch congregation established in Guntur in 1904. The JMJ Sisters had been praying for a doctor for many years.
New beginnings
Prior to her arrival, Mary knew little about her new country or the JMJ Sisters. Within a month after her arrival, she wrote to her family in Australia that she felt at home, stating ‘it was just by mistake’ she had not been born in India. Vast numbers of vulnerable people in the community required medical care. From her first year in India, Sister Mary had a vision for widespread healthcare provision and education grounded in Catholic principles. She viewed care for bodies as equal to care for souls. In Guntur, Sister Mary began to oversee medical treatment for all who sought assistance, particularly women and children. A gifted linguist, she learnt the local language, Telegu, and that of the nuns, Dutch. She built trust, using traditional remedies where other medicines were not available.
A decade after Sister Mary arrived in India, her Mother Superior at Guntur wrote to Mary’s parents and compared their daughter to a lighthouse. ‘She always keeps in the background,’ she wrote, ‘while she spreads the light of her good deeds over a very great distance’.
Even though the JMJ Sisters appealed for donations in Europe and Australia, resources remained scant. Facing myriad challenges over three decades, Sister Mary devoted herself to alleviating suffering and promoting a culture of life. She guided others and worked collaboratively to establish St Joseph’s Hospital in Guntur and accredited courses in midwifery, pharmacy assistance and nursing.
Catholic Hospitals’ Association born
On July 29, 1943, Sister Mary founded the Catholic Hospitals’ Association (now CHAI) at St Joseph Convent in Guntur, together with nuns from her as well as other congregations. Today, CHAI auspices the care of more than 21 million people annually, particularly those among the most vulnerable in the community. The focus of CHAI medical and social workers (volunteers and paid employees), is to deliver ‘health for all’ via compassionate, affordable and quality healthcare. For decades, Sister Mary worked towards establishing, and prayed for a Catholic medical college. Six years after her death in May 1957, St John’s Medical College opened in Bengaluru. This year, the College celebrates its diamond jubilee.
Sister Mary’s Cause for canonisation opened in 2010. Declared a Servant of God, her position is now before the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Her legacy lives on through the work of CHAI and the JMJ Sisters in India, and Saint John’s Medical College. Her life also continues to inspire Australians and others who visit the Mary Glowrey Museum in the Archdiocese of Melbourne.
This article was written by Fiona Power and published in Vatican News on 10th September 2023. Reprinted with permission.
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BLUE MOUNTAINS: Group meets on the fourth Saturday morning of the month, 10 am at Wentworth Falls. All welcome. For more information contact Monica Bright. M: 0420 937 690 or E: mbright45@bigpond.com
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I drove hours to see them – five minutes with them was the gift of a lifetime
“I’m obsessed with the monks,” my friend Sam told me. “It’s the only thing getting me through the violence of this second Trump administration. The monks, and my meds.”
I nodded. I’d first heard about the monks walking for peace after my brother and sister-in-law travelled to hear them in Alabama, returning with stories of stillness and a grounded sense of hope.
The monks are part of a 2,300-mile pilgrimage for peace from a Buddhist
temple in Fort Worth, Texas, across nine states to Washington DC. Dressed in vibrant orange robes, they have walked about 20 miles daily, eating one meal a day and practicing loving-kindness – a form of mindfulness that can be thought of as a non-violent resistance.
Their journey is a slow-moving meditation meant to embody peace, rather than argue for it. So far, they’ve faced extreme challenges. After a driver crashed into the group in Texas, one of the monks had to go through a leg amputation. They’ve also had to contend with the bitter, snowy cold that has engulfed this part of the country.
I’ve spent more than two decades working as an environmental educator, engaging college students in community action, from responding to climate disasters to growing food in school gardens. I believe that small acts, repeated over time, can make a difference. The monks’ message, rooted in presence rather than protest, showed me an additional, quieter way to summon peace in my own life, my community and my country.
I decided to drive two and half hours to see them, leaving the Blue Ridge Mountains at sunrise for the flatlands of High Point, North Carolina. Once there, I hustled to the street where about 20 monks were scheduled to pass and joined hundreds of people lining the sidewalks of this small southern town, waiting to witness the message of “unity, compassion, and healing for the nation”. Later that day, thousands would fill a nearby stadium to hear them speak.
To my right, I overheard four silver-haired women my age tracking the route on their phones. They had beach chairs, blankets and snacks at the ready. Across the street, construction workers silenced their power tools as they kept watch from the second-story office building across the street. A woman with dreads held up a poster with the words repeated by the monks: “Today is our peaceful day.” I looked at her and smiled. She gave me a thumbs-up. I hadn’t said a word to anyone in the crowd,
but I felt a connection to our shared yearning for peace.
The live map predicted the monks would arrive between 10am and 11am, and at 10.45am, a woman called out: “Here come the sirens! I’ve gone to three different towns to see the monks, and first, a police car drives through and asks folks to get on the sidewalk!”
We all shuffled our feet, backing up while craning our necks to see. A few hawkers walked past carrying black T-shirts emblazoned with a colour photo of the monks and Aloka, their companion dog.
“Get your monks T-shirt now before you see them! Twenty bucks a pop! Going once, going twice!” I clicked a picture and sent it to my friend Sam. “Monk merch!” I texted. “Everybody’s gotta make a dollar!” he replied.
I’d vowed to observe the monks, rather than take photos of them, when they passed. Indeed, that night in nearby Greensboro, my younger daughter listened to their talk: “So often, people gather to watch us but all we see are their phones, their lovers,” one of the monks said. (Yes, he called out our phones as a lover.) “But when you clasp your hands together, you have to put down your phone and be in the moment.”
And in a heartbeat, we saw them turn the corner and head our way: men in silence with shaved heads and flowing robes, some barefoot, some in running shoes, all walking at a brisk pace, carrying and giving flowers along the way.
“This is the beautiful truth about peace: when you give it away, it doesn’t diminish – it multiplies. When you share joy, you don’t lose it – you create more of it,” the monks had posted about giving away the roses, carnations and tulips handed to them on their journey.
Five minutes after rounding the corner, the men passed us. I bowed my head and held my palms in prayer, along with the construction workers above me, the family with three kids beside me, and the older women wrapped in blankets. A police officer lowered his gaze, and I burst into tears. I realise five minutes of loving kindness might seem insignificant in the face of an authoritarian regime, but I looked at those around me in community as one nation, one Earth, one peace.
I didn’t try to wipe the tears from my face. And when the monks leave our nation’s capital this week, I’ll hold that practice and gift of kindness with me forever.
This article was written by Mallory McDuff and was published in The Guardian on 11th February, 2026. Printed with permission.