Members, Not Guests

The Vital Role of Women’s Leadership in the Church

“How can a self-respecting woman remain Catholic?”

The blunt question is one that many Catholic women have grappled with at some point in their lives. And it was a question that, when posed to Sr. Teresa Maya, CCVI, by her college roommate Julia, it never left her mind or heart.

“I have been answering Julia’s question my entire life,” she said.

Sr. Maya of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, and a member of Leadership Roundtable’s Board of Directors, was one of four panelists at the 2022 Catholic Partnership Summit who led the conversation surrounding The Vital Role of Women’s Leadership in the Church. She joined Dr. Carolyn Woo, Casey Stanton, and Dr. Kathleen McChesney on the panel.

Synthesizer David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, said that the panel and the table discussions for the session sought also to answer another fundamental question: what is a women's role before the face of God and before the face of the Church?

Members. Not guests.

“Women are not the guests of the Church,” Dr. Carolyn Woo said. “And we don’t need invitations. We are members of the family.”

Often, women are treated as guests of the Church, expected to be charming, good-natured, and to not ask too many questions, said Woo, who has held several leadership roles in the Church, and recently wrote a book on women’s leadership in the Church.

Women are just as much members of the body of Christ as men, yet despite the recent strides in the Vatican to open more leadership roles in the Roman Curia to women, there is still a prevailing, false perception that women are somehow outside of the norm.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) synthesis report on the Synod in the U.S. referenced those marginalized in the Church, including in that grouping women, Latinos, people of color, LGBTQ Catholics, and others.

Noting that Latino’s make up about half of the Church in the U.S., and that women make up at least half of the Church, once you add in the others who are considered marginalized, Sr. Maya pointedly asked: “who’s left?”

Her question cut to the quick of a challenge that has long faced women in the Church: that often women are marginalized from leadership and other roles, yet constitute the majority of the People of God.

“We are the Church,” Sr. Maya said. “We are the Church and we should be part of all of it. All of it.”

Intentional Leadership

In researching her book “Rising: Learning from Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries,” Woo said she sought to answer a question asked of her years prior by a young woman: “Are there really these sort of openings for leadership for women in the Church, or is it just completely accidental?”

Dr. Kathleen McChesney, a member of Leadership Roundtable’s Board of Directors who previously held leadership positions in the FBI, the Walt Disney corporation, and the USCCB, said that the movement for expanding women’s leadership is not unique to the Church.

Woo’s research revealed that, compared to the private sector where only about 8 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, the Church is, in many ways, much farther ahead.

In the Church, one-third, or about 33 percent, of Catholic universities and Catholic health systems are led by women. Half of Catholic Charities in the U.S. are led by women, as are Catholic school systems, of which 50 percent are led by a female superintendent.

Woo said she too questioned whether the Church was actively seeking more women in leadership or if she, as former president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, or the women who contributed to her book leaders like Kim Daniels, director of the Institute on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University; Sr. Donna Markham, OP, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA; Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, retired president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association; Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter; or Leadership Roundtable Executive Partner, Kerry Robinson were perhaps “accidentally” leading major Church ministries.

“Is it a desert? Or is it a desert with an occasional oasis?” Woo asked, reframing the question metaphorically. “Or are we really seeing the greening of the landscape?”

“Not to mention that you have Chancellors, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, CFOs [Chief Finance Officers], and Chief Legal Officers in dioceses,” Woo said, adding that many of those jobs are often held by women.

Women's Leadership in the Church

Catholic universities led by women

33% Catholic Charities led by women

33%

50% Catholic health systems led by women

50% Catholic school systems led by women superintendents

Leading in a time of Crisis

Many Catholics have questioned how differently the Church might have operated in the last few decades if women held more leadership roles, particularly when questioning the response to the crises of abuse, leadership failure, and financial mismanagement.

McChesney was tasked with leading the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection when it was created in 2002 at the USCCB. But when she took the job, she learned that women had already been working beyond their roles within the bishops' conference and across the Church to address the crisis.

When the details of abuse began to emerge in the Boston Globe, the bishops sought guidance and support from women, McChesney said. It was two women in particular Sr. Lourdes Sheehan, RSM, associate general secretary at the USCCB, and Sr. Andree Fries, CPPS, who led the USCCB’s National Religious Retirement Office who advised the bishops.

“Unbeknownst to many people, then-Bishop Wilton Gregory, who was president of the Conference, and Msgr. William Fay, who was general secretary, were in need of some backroom guidance, if you will, with regard to the crisis,” McChesney shared. “In the lead-up to the development of the Charter [for the Protection of Children and Young People], Sr. Andree who had a full-time job and Sr. Lourdes who had a full-time job began devoting time, talent, information, advice, and guidance.” spotlight to address the crisis. Throughout the Church, women were intervening to protect children and report the offender, sometimes at great risk of their employment.

“There are hundreds of cases that you’ll never hear about of women who worked in Catholic schools and churches, who had the wonderful intuition about things that weren’t right,” McChesney said.

However, as McChesney pointed out, the responsibility of protecting children truly belongs to all members of the Church and, when all are involved, is an example of synodality in action.

Breaking the Cycles of Misogyny and Clericalism

McChesney also made clear that much of what inhibits women’s leadership is culture.

Srs. Andree and Lourdes advised and helped to implement portions of the Charter that, 20 years later, are still in use today legacy programs for abuse awareness, prevention, and response. But they weren’t the only ones.

But they weren’t the only women working out of the

“We have to be open to understanding our organizations, understanding organizational behavior, and then trying to find ways to make that culture change,” she said. “And cultural change is huge.”

During the plenary portion of the session, a bishop asked how to address, among seminarians, a growing and very real overlap of misogyny — the dislike and contempt of, and ingrained prejudice against women — and clericalism — an expectation, leading to abuses of power, that ordained ministers are better than, and should be over, everyone else among the People of God. He further asked how to instead create an environment where women are celebrated and incorporated into ministry.

“I don’t have enough time,” quipped McChesney in response, before stating that misogyny has no place in the Church. She suggested numerous avenues to including women in seminary formation as a means to address the problem — from hiring more women as instructors to women serving on review and psychological evaluation panels.

She noted, however, that the burden of breaking the culture of misogyny and clericalism should not fall exclusively on the shoulders of women.

“It's selecting the right individuals,” she said of the priesthood. “And when I'm asked — and I’m asked a lot about formation and yes formation is critically important — but I submit to you that selection is more important than formation.”

Woo advised that good leadership, co-responsible leadership, requires knowing how your actions impact others.

“That whole ability to really understand how you are in relationship to others and how your speech, and your behavior and your decisions, affect the other person, I think that's key,” she said.

Sr. Maya warned that not addressing misogyny and clericalism now could lead to an even more hurt Church in the future.

“I just worry, I truly worry, that if we don't take some of those lessons, in 10 or 15 years, we're going to start to see those lawsuits and an even more hurt Church,” she said. “We can't do that anymore.”

Called to Lead

Despite the stories emerging of the historic presence of women’s leadership in the Church, and the growing number of women in leadership roles, Woo said she has recently been part of events that, for merely featuring a few female leaders, were billed as “historical” and where there was a policy that the group wouldn’t do interviews unless there were other women panelists.

Sr. Maya said she has often been the only woman at the table or serving on the board of directors.

“And I just said, ‘I'm here for everyone else that hasn't been invited,’” she said.

Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, said her organization formed in 2021 by listening to the stories of women, by encountering women and trusting their experiences.

In considering how to frame her comments during the Summit and share what she has heard from women, Stanton noted the need for vulnerability in synodality.

“And just as it's true that there's no synodality without the Holy Spirit, there's also no synodality without vulnerability,” she said. “The gift of tears comes because I’m so filled with their broken hearts, and their deep, deep love of this Church.”

Many women feel caught in the intersections between their vocational call and a profound love of Jesus and the Gospel, a profound love of the Church, and a profound love of the people they feel called to serve.

“And there’s a real heartache in that, that women carry,” she said. “And they often don’t speak it aloud.”

Acknowledging that her organization deals with the very difficult question of women and if they should be allowed ordination to the diaconate — a Holy order that, in the past, was opened to women as well as men — Stanton encouraged those who felt their “hackles” going up to take a deep breath.

“We’re not doing anything heretical,” she said. “It’s OK for us to talk about the question of women in the diaconate.” During his papacy, Pope Francis has created two commissions, including a current one in 2020, to study the history and question of women deacons.

She encouraged those in the room to not miss the moment, not miss the opportunity presented in the Synod process to discern what is being revealed by the Holy Spirit in regard to women’s leadership.

“What would that mean in your own backyard? Who would it be good news for?” she asked. “And as you go out and listen to your daily communicants, to your folks who work right next to you in the diocesan office, to those who have one or maybe two feet out the door, old and young, is you just hold a space to live this question together and listen for what's revealed.”

Gifts from God

“I think there's perhaps more that the Church could do to fully receive the gifts of women for ministry,” Stanton said.

The USCCB’s Synod synthesis report and those released by other countries have made clear that the People of God desire to see more women in leadership roles, even as they also acknowledge that women are currently serving in many roles throughout the Church.

“We're all invited to make the road by walking it together,” Stanton said. “We are diminished when any of us feel like we can't put forth the gifts that are here that we want to offer to the collective project of building the kingdom of God and building up the body of Christ.”

“At every level, we need a succession plan for ongoing leadership, and encouraging and welcoming in those gifts,” Sr. Maya said. “And this, this will be an incredible Church if we do that.”

Woven throughout all the stories shared by the panel, there was a thread of courage, noted moderator Alexandra Carroll, Communications Manager for Social Mission with the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the USCCB.

“We see time and time again, women are coming to the top of leadership. They’re acting courageously,” Carroll said. “We women have continually led with this courage and by embracing new strategies, embracing these folks on the margins. What can the Church learn from this experience?”

It is important to realize that not all women start with courage, some started with simply caring about something and found the Church a place where they could live out their call to action, Woo said.

Teaching children to care, creating space in the Church to mentor and recognize a person’s gifts, and then making sure they know the Church is a place where they can put their call into action are vital first steps, she said.

Sr. Maya cautioned that the efforts to include women in leadership need to be intentional, it won’t happen organically.

“It's not about creating policies, but we need a pathway,” she said. “I think we need to start with girls and teenagers. They need to know that this is their Church. They need to feel encouraged. We need pathways to leadership in every area of our Church life, whether it's liturgy, social services, Catholic organizations.”

Expanding women’s leadership also isn’t as simple as “add a woman and stir,” or change one word in canon law and we’re fixed, Stanton said. “No, it's much deeper than that.”

Conversations, listening, and discerning together are the mold into which Pope Francis is leading the Church for decisions about leadership and more.

“A much more charismatic discernment of a leadership flowing out of gifts for the position — this is the reform of the Curia that we are witnessing right now,” Stanton said.

Women’s leadership also must include recognizing the dignity of women, Sr. Maya said.

“We have to defend women, protect women, help women. We have to be fierce about our care for women,” she said. “I hope that if we do this, as a community, I will one day be able to answer that question my friend asked in college so many years ago.”