Women-Church Convergence 2024 Annual Meeting
Women-Church Convergence held their annual meeting in Washington DC in March 2024, in the offices of Catholics for Choice.
We were prayerfully called to gather, based on our mission: We come together as Women-Church Convergence, a coalition of autonomous Catholic-rooted groups, to honor our past, celebrate our accomplishments, and strategize for the future. We are working to build just social and ecclesial structures with shared power for everyone, especially women and those whom church and society marginalize.
Our mission continues: Women-Church Convergence amplifies diverse feminist, faith-filled voices. We create spaces in which all can live out their vision of full inclusion in church and society.
Our commitment to feminist ministries and our social justice values lead us to act boldly in the world for the benefit of all.
During our gathering we explored our connections as feminist Catholic-rooted organizations working for justice. We reflected on the years we have partnered, prayed and acted in collaboration. Many of our organizations have aged, and many are still actively doing vital work. We spent time exploring our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a SWOT Analysis. Challenges include an aging and shrinking church population, and strengths/opportunities include our passion, insight, boldness and most importantly the continued need for prophetic voices.
We will spend this upcoming year exploring how to support and sustain emerging feminist voices for justice.
Women-Church Convergence Deplores Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett October 20, 2020
October 21, 2020
Women-Church Convergence Deplores Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett
Women-Church Convergence, a coalition of Catholic-rooted organizations, deplores the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. We have serious concerns about the judgment of any nominee who would collaborate in material ways in such a morally dubious enterprise. The current administration is obviously fulfilling a campaign promise to put justices on the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade. To collaborate in such a public corruption of the judicial system is to create scandal.
Amy Coney Barrett is a moral agent capable and responsible for making her own choices. But even the appearance of willingness to sacrifice her own agency and integrity in service of a longstanding conservative, parochial, overweening agenda is deeply troubling to us. Loss of respect and reputation is a high price to pay to achieve a role for which she has been groomed from her student days by conservative Catholic colleagues. Scores of her University of Notre Dame colleagues have called her to step aside for the common good.
Read more: Women-Church Convergence Deplores Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett October 20, 2020
An Open Letter to Catholic Voters and All Voters for Justice in the United States from Women-Church Convergence, July 2020
July 2020
An Open Letter to Catholic Voters and All Voters for Justice in the United States from Women-Church Convergence 
We greet you in the midst of a global pandemic, an economic catastrophe, and a moral emergency. We are women who lead Catholic-rooted organizations and communities. Our hearts are heavy with grief over Covid-19 illness and deaths, with the sting of unemployment and fiscal uncertainty, and especially with the weight of systemic racism and white supremacy that assure that people of color suffer all of these problems in disproportionate ways.
Our organizations struggle to support immigrants, guarantee reproductive justice, eradicate racism, gain women’s and LGBTIQ rights both in church and society, model inclusive community, and nurture ecology. The need for actions beyond words sparks this missive.
As we seek to answer the hard questions about what to do next, our collective mind turns to the November 2020 elections in the United States that will have worldwide repercussions. These elections are the next significant chance we have to stem the tide of injustice and usher in a new era of equality.
Voting is a hard-won and sacred duty. We implore you to VOTE.
Read more: An Open Letter to Catholic Voters and All Voters for Justice in the United States from...
Women-Church Convergence Panel - April 6, 2019
“How equality can flourish in a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-generational church. What does this church look like physically, spiritually, doctrinally?”The panel discussion in this video was held on Saturday, April 6, 2019, at the Swarthmore Meeting House in Swarthmore, PA. It was co-sponsored by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference (SEPAWOC) and the Women-Church Convergence.
Panelists (in order of speaking):
- Mariam Williams, writer, dancer, arts educator
- Marian Ronan, Research Professor of Catholic Studies, New York Theological Seminary
- Kathleen Grimes, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Villanova University
- Sonja Spoo, Associate Campaigns Director, UltraViolet
Moderator:
- Mary E. Hunt, co-director, Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER)
Please feel free, indeed encouraged to share this video with individuals and groups that wish to contemplate the provocative title question. SEPAWOC and Women-Church Convergence look forward to your feedback.
Special thanks to our speakers and to our videographer, Gary Reed.
Sorry - this video is no longer available.
Women-Church Convergence to Catholic Hierarchy: “No More Abuse!”
October 30, 2018
Women-Church Convergence to Catholic Hierarchy: “No More Abuse!”
We, the undersigned members of Women-Church Convergence, a coalition of 28 feminist groups rooted in the Catholic tradition, say to the Catholic hierarchy and leadership throughout the world, “No More Abuse!”
Survivors of sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse perpetrated by those representing the Roman Catholic institution are scarred for life. The cover-up by the Vatican and its cardinals is in total opposition to the teaching of Jesus and the Gospel. The Catholic community is facing a pastoral emergency of epic proportions!
We are horrified and disgusted by the well-catalogued accounts of priest pedophilia, abuse of vulnerable adults, bishops forcing seminarians and other priests to engage in sex as a condition of employment, bishops covering up crimes, and the former nuncio’s depiction of dueling factions among clerical higher-ups. We are shocked that bishops continued the abominable practice of moving priest perpetrators to different parishes and did not report the abuse as crimes to legal authorities.
What drives these disgraced Catholic clerics to put their own power and reputation above the safety of its most vulnerable members: children, women, and the non-ordained? It is patriarchy pure and simple, the mistaken notion that a few men, in this case allegedly but not necessarily celibate men, have the right to control what ought to be a democratic institution. That time is over.
Enough is more than enough! Clerical privilege and episcopal rule by incompetent and sometimes criminal cardinals, bishops, and priests must end.
Read more: Women-Church Convergence to Catholic Hierarchy: “No More Abuse!”
Women-Church Convergence Statement against Gun Violence
The letter below was sent by Members of Women-Church Convergence to the Student Leaders of March for Our Lives in Parkland, Florida.
May 4, 2018
Dear Anti-Gun Violence Leaders,
We, religious feminists rooted in the Catholic tradition, greet, applaud, and join you in your efforts to eradicate gun violence. Your courageous and insightful leadership is making a big difference.
We are deeply impressed by you who remind us of our justice-seeking children in your call for non-violence, an end to false notions of masculinity, and the embrace of all diverse and unique members of our communities. We write to convey our gratitude and pledge our support.
Read more: Women-Church Convergence Statement against Gun Violence
Every Day Is International Women’s Day: A Discussion of Voices of Faith’s 2018 “Why Women Matter” Event and the Work of Feminist Ministries
Remarks from March 9, 2018 Teleconference (in order):
Kate McElwee, Executive Director, Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC)
Marianne Duddy-Burke, Executive Director, DignityUSA
Mary E. Hunt, Co-director, Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER)
Audio available here:
https://soundcloud.com/water-womens-alliance/every-day-is-international-womens-day-with-water-dignity-and-woc