To reach and keep young Catholics, the church must recognise women’s leadership

Monday, June 19th, 2023

Women play a vital role in passing on the faith to the next generation.

But when 99% of Catholic churches have a male preacher this Sunday in a world where 50% of the Catholic population are women, it’s time for our daughters and granddaughters — and sons and grandsons — to see us naming out loud a problem we’ve endured quietly in our hearts.

What seemed normalised to my devout Catholic Cuban grandmothers, and became uncomfortable for my mother and has become unacceptable for me, is now unbearable for my nieces and many of our daughters.

This will have untold consequences for the future of Catholic ministries.

According to a report by the Pew Research Center, as of 2022, 43% of Hispanic adults identify as Catholic, down from 67% in 2010.

In my work listening to older Hispanic/Latino Catholics in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere, I often hear how their children and grandchildren have become disengaged from their families’ long-standing, multigenerational Catholic faith.

The loss of family unity feels enormous.

What seemed normalised

to my devout Catholic Cuban grandmothers,

and became uncomfortable for my mother

and has become unacceptable for me,

is now unbearable

for my nieces and many of our daughters.

I co-direct Discerning Deacons, a project inviting Catholics to consider women’s inclusion in the permanent diaconate — an order that already includes married men ordained to serve in the life of the church.

We launched our effort because young Catholics have only ever lived in a church reckoning with the clergy sex-abuse crisis.

They see other professional fields taking steps to recognize women in visible leadership roles — athletics, government, academics, medicine, business — and wonder why their religious institutions will not.

These challenges have not escaped my own family.

After my niece Carolina was confirmed as a teenager, she begged her parents not to obligate her to keep going to Mass.

My niece found it increasingly painful and unbearable to walk into a church where only men preached.

“I can’t find God in church when I’m feeling so angry and rejected,” Carolina told her mother.

“They haven’t set up a space to welcome me the way I believe God would welcome me.”

The family was faced with rethinking Sundays.

Ultimately, they agreed that Carolina would choose a spiritual book that interested her to keep nurturing her soul, which was important to her parents, and on the way to Mass, they would drop her off at Starbucks.

After they picked her up, they would engage in a faith conversation.

Today, Carolina is living out her faith by building a community that is more inclusive and welcoming — much like what Jesus did. Continue reading

Ellie Hidalgo is a parishioner at Our Lady of Divine Providence Church in Miami, Florida and is co-director of Discerning Deacons, a project that engages Catholics in the active discernment of our Church about women and the diaconate.