Former United States president Jimmy Carter has said the Catholic Church’s practice of not ordaining women gives tacit permission for discrimination and abuse. Mr Carter said this during an interview with National Public Radio in the United States ahead of publication of his latest book. “ . . . [T]he fact that the Catholic Church, Read more
Clerical designs are bound to tradition and slow to change. But this year for the first time, Stephen Fendler is revamping CM Almy’s women’s line of everyday clothing to keep up with increased demand. In the United States, in 2012, more than 20 percent of clergy were women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Read more
The Vatican this week unveiled a series of catacombs used by early Christians in Rome after a major restoration. The Priscilla catacombs where Christians worshipped and buried their own are re-opening to the public after five years of work in which restorers used lasers to clean up the religious frescoes on the walls. The Vatican’s Read more
Today is Sister Vivian Ivantic’s 100th birthday. She’s spent 90 of those years hoping to one day become a priest, and she still holds firm to that conviction. “I think the American church is outstanding,” she told The Chicago Tribune. “But I’m waiting for women’ ordination. We have been deprived of the celebration of the Read more
Last week, Pope Francis loosed a media tsunami by dropping a pebble of sanity into an ocean of religious angst. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he told reporters on the flight back to Rome after his trip to Brazil. What did it Read more
The vast majority of Ireland’s Catholics want married priests and women priests, reports the Independent. The finding is the result of a poll conducted by Ireland’s Association of Catholic priests (ACP) which has one of its founding members silenced and sent to a monastery for a period of reflection. The ACP claim a mandate from mass-goers Read more
In 2010, women priests outnumbered male priests for the first time in the Church of England, reports Vatican Insider. The latest available official figures for 2010 show that 290 women were ordained in 2010, compared with just 273 men. For one of the most hotly debated topics in Church circles, this marks a historical moment. Read more
The acting head of a Rotorua-based Maori theological college says there are calls for Maori women to become Catholic priests.
A Catholic Church spokesperson says there have been calls for women to be ordained but it’s the first time he’s heard of the particular request for Maori women priests.
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In an interview with Anthony Gaspari of Zenit the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza touches on all the issues that will certainly emerge during the Papal visit to Germany. He comments on women’s ordination, the influence of the Vatican, ecumenism, celibacy and vocations. Is the ordination of women to be considered Read more
A drive by Austrian priests to reform the rules around the ordination of women and an end to celibacy is getting widespread support. In a recent poll conduced by the Oekonsult polling institute, 71.7% of Austrians said the “priests initiative” was both “fair and reasonable”, with 64.7% saying they would sign a “call for insubordination”. The “Priests’ Read more