Project Purpose
PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE disrupts bad theology to free the Roman Catholic Church to ordain women as priests as God has always intended.
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What to expect
Over the next year, this website will offer an audio course that dives into the scripture, tradition, and history related to the ordination of women as priests; a podcast that features conversations with scholars, theologians and women called to priesthood; and a collection of the vocation stories of women who are called to priesthood and would serve right now if the Church brough its teaching on ordination into alignment with God. The hope is that you will be given the information you need to discern for yourself whether the teaching of an all-male priesthood is coming from God.
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Why now
PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE is being undertaken alongside the Vatican's study on "the role of women in the Church. It was commissioned in March 2024 by Pope Francis as part of the Synod on Synodality and assigned to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to execute. The DDF will carry out its work and make recommendations regarding the role of women in the Church to the Pope in June 2025. Under pressure during the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis also restarted the 2020 Commission studying whether to ordain women to the diaconate.
When it comes to priesthood for women, Pope Francis excluded it from any kind of study, outright violating the synod values and process set up under his guidance. It is clear that the doctrine is not settled, and has not been settled for decades. For example, calls for the ordination of women as priests came from around the world during the Synod (though not universal); priesthood for women was discussed at both the 2023 and 2024 October assemblies in Rome; divergence exists at every level of the Church (laity, religious brothers and sisters, and ordained deacons, priests, bishops and cardinals support ordaining women as priests); and because the world's bishops have not been in communion on this teaching for decades, the doctrine cannot be definitively held per church teaching (see Lumen Gentium) and is open for discernment. Pope Francis, who displays remarkable inner freedom on so many things, has repeatedly demonstrated that he lacks inner freedom when it comes to following the Holy Spirit on women more broadly and ordination specifically. To hold Pope Francis, Church and Synod leadership, and the DDF accountable to the values of synodality, PROJECT: ORDINATION JUSTICE picks up where their work leaves off in order to make accessible and digestible the full range of information needed to discern God's invitation to the Roman Catholic Church regarding the role of women. |
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