Dear Dialogue Participant,

Thank you for deciding to participate in A Call for National Dialogue for Women in Church Leadership, a joint project of Call to Action and FutureChurch. This new dialogue grew from a desire to provide practical resources for women and men who wish to implement the far reaching recommendations published in 1996 by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' Benchmarks project. We also see this endeavor as a natural partner to our Call for National Dialogue on the Future of Priestly Ministry project which is attracting many participants as the priest shortage worsens.

Vatican officials persist in placing the male celibate priesthood ahead of the sacramental needs of Catholics. This is both a great difficulty and a hidden blessing. The difficulty is that more and more Catholics have less and less access to the Mass and the sacraments. The blessing is that more and more lay women and men now minister in our Church as they assume pastoral duties heretofore performed by priests. We know that the call to lay ministry has its own integrity. Yet many lay ministers privately acknowledge that they would serve our Catholic community as priests, were ordination open to them.

So, what to do in the meantime? Both FutureChurch and Call to Action believe that we must work with institutional Catholicism where it is, even while we call for change. For us, this means continuing to advocate for opening the possibility of ordination to all who experience a priestly call, regardless of gender or state in life. It also means calling for expanded leadership roles for women in our Church right now, short of ordination.

We are supported in this effort by Church teaching: "Every kind of discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language ore religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design." (Vatican II Gaudium et Spes). It could be that institutional intransigence is derived in part from ignorance about the radical inclusivity of the historical Jesus, an inclusivity taken for granted by women and men in the earliest Churches. We hope to broaden the knowledge base of our local churches about the Jesus who both heals and calls us to pour out our lives on behalf of the God whose love alone can make us whole.

We will not be whole until women's leadership gifts flourish equally in our Church with those of men.

This packet contains educational, advocacy, and organizational materials for launching the dialogue in your area. Please pay special attention to the "How to Start a Women's Equality Witness" flyer. It provides valuable ideas about where to start (or continue!) the conversation in your diocese.

Christine Schenk CSJ of FutureChurch will serve as project coordinator for this effort and, along with Eileen Verbus, plans to follow up with you to provide consultation and/or regional advice. Feel free to contact them at the Ohio address if you need more resource packets or brochures.

We hope this dialogue will lead us, and our Bishops, to a new moment of listening both to the signs of the time, and to women witnesses whose voices, like Mary Magdalene's, have too long been silenced.

We thank you for helping us build a church that is whole.

Sincerely yours,

Christine Schenk, CSJ
Project Coordinator