Women who take a stand
Voices of Faith has a small team with an extensive network among Catholic women around the world: activists, theologians, religious sisters, leaders and thinkers. Together we are committed to speaking honestly and clearly about discrimination in the Church and how it damages individual lives and whole communities.
Voices of Faith creates events where diverse women’s voices are made public and drawing attention to valuable experiences and reflections. We promote campaigns and raise awareness on how gender inequality causes different kinds of abuse. By supporting research, we go deeper into understanding the mechanisms of exclusion. We envision a community of faithful where dignity and equal rights of each person are respected and celebrated.
Our special focus is on religious sisters. We are aware that many of them are struggling with issues rarely seen and discussed in official church discourse. Too often their work and lives are hampered by stagnant church structures and traditions. It is not their struggle to carry alone, but is a systemic problem of the Church and our common responsibility.
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For centuries, theological discourse and church practice have been shaped by a narrow group of men. To this day, only men make decisions about the future of the Church. In recent years we have seen with unprecedented acuity how damaging this is. It will take a serious effort not only to bring all groups back to the table but above all to unlearn exclusionary, patriarchal and clerical thinking.
The biggest discriminated group in the Church is women. Although they constitute more than half of the Church, they are treated as the "other", a special case, an exception. They are not allowed to be active decision-makers, they cannot exercise authority or effectively take responsibility for the community, even at the local level.
The system built on such exclusion produces victims. With time, we see more and more fully that allowing women into the existing system is not enough. We need creativity, open discussion and free thinking to create a church life that respects the equality and dignity of all people and respects the Gospel.
How long must we wait for the promised changes? It is now that we need to introduce women to all positions where they can take responsibility and be leaders. With creativity, we must start giving shape to new communities and new possibilities. We need to read and popularise spiritual heritage and theological insights brought by Catholic women over the centuries with the same seriousness as those written by men. We are already doing what we are called to do, without having to ask permission.
We need creativity, open discussion, free thinking - to create a church life that respects the equality and dignity of all people.
Herstory
The initiative of Voices of Faith started in 2014 with a celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) within the walls of the Vatican. Bringing together and listening to the concrete, diverse experiences of women from different cultural contexts was the scope of that first meeting and accompanies us constantly in each of our initiatives. Over the years we have collected a rich polyphony of female voices. We organised another three IWD events in the Vatican and one in the Jesuit General Curia in Rome. From 2018 we have been organising events dedicated to specific topics of female existence in the Church. We created or co-lead campaigns like Votes for Catholic Women, Overcoming Silence and Sister, What Do You Say? We collect and translate insights of Catholic women from around the world. Our networking effort brought to life the Catholic Women’s Council.