The People Speak Out

Local voices connecting globally

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.  (Pope Francis)

Canon Law 212 calls upon the laity to speak up:

2 - The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3. - According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

Women in the Church articles

 

I went to Catholic School for 12 years, sometimes as a boarder, run by the Holy Family sisters – mostly Irish but their mother house was in Bordeaux, France. I became a feminist when I was at university, but it was only after reading Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father, that I became more aware of the anomalies in the Catholic Church. My working life has been with NGOs working for social justice, and I have many Catholic women friends who feel the same way that I do. We meet together on a regular basis exploring feminist spirituality. They have become my place. It has become very difficult for me to attend church now, where the language is not inclusive and where we seem to have gone back instead of forward. Women should be treated as equals in our church and be able to become priests – there is no good reason why not, and I have so strongly felt this since the 1980s. I also support married priests and that LGBTI people should be welcomed as full members of the church. I love the Mass, and would like to see the church throw off the stranglehold of St Augustine and his attitude to women, read the signs of the times, and change. I also see hypocrisy in my country in the way that the different cultures are treated by the church, again especially with regard to women.

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