First announced at last November's CTA conference, the new project pushing expanded church leadership roles for women moved into high gear this month with publication of a well-researched, user-friendly packet of education/ organizing materials.

The "Call for National Dialogue on Women in Church Leadership" -- WICL, for short, is a companion to the ongoing project on the Future of Priestly Ministry (FOPM), which continues to attract participants as the priest shortage worsens. Both are joint endeavors of CTA and Cleveland-based FutureChurch, and are coordinated by Christine Schenk, CSJ.

While FOPM raises awareness of the priest shortage and advocates opening priesthood to married people and women, WICL focuses on expanding leadership roles for women right now, short of ordination. It promotes parish-based education to build a knowledgeable grassroots constituency for women's and lay equality in Catholicism. The WICL resources (see box, right) draw upon the Leadership Conference of Women Religious'1996 Benchmarks project, the Canon Law Society of America, and other church ministry groups. At the heart of the WICL packet are fact-filled brochures on Jesus and women, women in Scripture, and women in church history. "The institutional Church's resistance to women in leadership may in part come from ignorance about the radical inclusivity of the historical Jesus, which was taken for granted by women and men in the earliest churches," says Schenk. "So education can make a big difference."

The project also calls for:

• Equal funding and access for women's ministerial training alongside priest ministers.
• The development in every diocese of comprehensive personnel systems that are based on competency, not ordination or state of life, and that apply equally to clergy and laity, men and women.
• Opening preaching opportunities for qualified women/ lay ministers, and consideration of opening the permanent diaconate to those women who feel called to it.
• The appointment of qualified women to significant leadership positions in the Church at national, diocesan, and parish levels.
• Education in partnership ministry models for all diocesan personnel.
• Consideration of linking Church governance to baptism rather than ordination.