Sr. Madeleine Fredell OP | Sweden

“My wish for women in the Catholic Church is to be acknowledged as being baptized to Christ. We are all priests, prophets and kings. This means that we are called to take full responsibility in celebrating faith, teaching and preaching faith and leading the ecclesial community. Women and men are equal persons in the Church, cf Gal 3:26––29. This is not about careerism, it is about human respect for a fundamental equality between women and men. I am no longer staying silent about the silencing of women in the Church. We know about religious sisters being sexually abused by priests and the life-long suffering that entails. There are also economic abuses, abuses of conscience and abuses of power. It all comes down to a culture of silence of which the Church is suffering almost everywhere. The abuse of power and silencing are difficult to address, as it often is an in-built system, a “culture” which is part and parcel of everyday life. People tend not to recognize this before they themselves become the target. I’m sharing this because I deeply believe in a vowed religious life. However, the traditional theology of religious life has to be deconstructed and a new way of publicly living the baptismal vows recreated.”