Kate McElwee

Kate McElwee is the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, a grassroots-driven movement that promotes activism, dialogue and prayerful witness to call for women's ordination and gender equity in the Roman Catholic Church. She is married to NCR news editor Joshua McElwee.

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Women's ordination advocates walk toward St. Peter's Square as part of a witness on Aug. 29, 2022. (NCR photo/Christopher White)

The Vatican's synod document is good. But how long must women wait?

The October 2023 Synod of Bishops should include the voices of women who have discerned a sincere call to the Catholic priesthood, says women's ordination advocate Kate McElwee.

Pope Francis speaks with staff members of the Vatican newspaper's monthly insert dedicated to women during an audience March 4 at the Vatican. The supplement, "Women, church, world," was launched in May in 2012. The pope praised and encouraged them in their work, saying "it is not a kind of clerical feminism of the pope, no! It is opening the door to a reality, a reflection that goes deeper." (CNS/Vatican Media)

The evolution of Pope Francis on women: Some movement, but more needed

Pope Francis' 10-year record on women in church management, ministry and even ordination is not the fireworks of change many pray for, but there has been movement, says the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference.

Outside the consistory of cardinals convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican in late August, women call for greater inclusion of women at all levels of the church. (Courtesy of Women's Ordination Conference)

The Vatican mentioned calls for women's ordination. Here begins the revolution?

That the Vatican's working document for the synod mentions women's ordination is significant, notes Kate McElwee of the Women's Ordination Conference.

The Vatican has included Women's Ordination Conference on its website Synodrsources.org, with links to the organization's synod resources for the Catholic Church's ongoing synodal process. (NCR screenshot)

Grant women's ordination advocates the respect of encounter

NCR's Michael Sean Winters inferred that the Women's Ordination Conference might impose an American "activist" agenda onto the synodal process. I ask simply that we are granted the respect of encounter before we are dismissed.

Supporters of women's ordination gather in Jackson Square in New Orleans outside the St. Louis Cathedral during the archdiocese's ordination ceremony for new priests in June 2015. (Gabriela Arp)

A 'love letter of unanswered questions' about women's ordination

Book Review: Jill Peterfeso's study of the womenpriests movement assesses the complicated interrogation of patriarchal inheritance, Catholic identity and feminism.

The movement for women's equality in the church cannot be stopped

Speakers at the recent Voices of Faith event articulated what is true for millions: We will no longer spend our valuable time waiting patiently for changes in imperialistic church policies that dehumanize and endanger women.

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