Vigil Calling on Pope to Ordain Women

PDF: English / Français / Italiano / Deutsch / Português

ROME, ITALY – Today, at 11:00 o’clock in the office of redazione di ADISTA, Via Acciaioli 7, 00186 Roma, representatives of Catholic organizations from around the world called for the full and equal participation of women in the Roman Catholic Church, including ordination as deacons, priests and bishops. The remarks came during a press conference held by Women’s Ordination Worldwide and other pro-ordination groups held in Rome to protest the Vatican’s “Year for Priests” celebration, which begins tomorrow.  After the press conference, the groups staged a vigil in St. Peter’s Square.

“The absolute hypocrisy of the ‘Year for Priests’ celebration cuts to the core of what is wrong with the hierarchy today,” said Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the U.S. based Women’s Ordination Conference.  “The Vatican is all too happy to turn a blind eye when men in its ranks destroy the lives of children and families, but jumps at the chance to excommunicate women who, in good conscience, are prophetically answering their call to ordination and responding to needs of their communities.”

Press release

Madrid / Rome, April 17, 2010

We are Church: "Now is the time to start reforms long overdue: Benedict XVI's fifth pontifical anniversary"

International Movement We are Church asks all the faithful to support Hans Kueng’s open letter to the bishops

The International Movement We are Church regrets that the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's election is so much tarnished by the deep crisis our Church at present is undergoing. We  refer to  the world-wide disclosure of sexual abuse scandals and their cover up for such a long time.

"It is not growing secularism that has caused the most profound crisis of our Church, but the inability of the Papacy to read the signs of the time", declares Raquel Mallavibarrena from the Spanish Somos Iglesia, present Chair of the International Movement We Are Church. "The abuse crisis and its concealment are due to an inhumane conception of sexuality and outdated patriarchal power structures. The actual global crisis makes it clear that the clerical hierarchy alone can’t serve any longer as the foundation and justification of the Catholic church's institutional structure and authority."

We are Church appreciates the present activities of the Pope combating paedophilia in the Church. Benedict’s tragedy is caused by the fact that he started it too late, too weakly, and that he is not supported enough by all cardinals, bishops, and the Roman Curia. He is now harvesting the fruits he sowed, when in 2001, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) he ordered all bishops in the universal church to conceal from public authorities any case of sexual crime against minors by members of the clergy and instead to inform his office.

IMWAC Press release on the pastoral letter of Benedict XVI to the Catholic Church in Ireland

A text by Hans Küng: [German] [French] [Spanish]