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How ACW started
In 1989 a number of Catholic women met together because they were both upset and exasperated. There was a great interest, in the media generally, about the position of women in the Catholic Church. On every side, we heard the words, ‘Women are marginalised. Women are angry. Women want a female God. Women the freedom to have sex outside marriage, to dissolve their marriages by divorce. Women want to have authority in the Church, they want to be made priests.’
We knew that, as Catholic women, we were not ‘marginalised’; we did not feel angry, but grateful for the grace that we received through the sacraments of the Church. As we thought more deeply, we realised that though God is, of course, a spirit and therefore neither male nor female, the Church uses the male pronoun for God because God creates life outside himself.
A Church that so honours Mary, the mother of God, could not, we found, despise women. A Church that names women as Doctors of the Church, St Catherine of Siena, St Teresa of Avila, St Thérèse of Lisieux, clearly values women for their ability to think prayerfully. The title of ‘Doctor ’ is an honour not lightly conferred by the Church . It is given to certain saints whose writing or preaching is outstanding for guiding the faithful.
We also discovered that while Jesus obviously loved women like Martha and Mary, he did not include them among his apostles, with the power to bring Christ again to the altar in the Mass, and with the power to forgive sins. The priest at the altar stands for Christ, thus he is male, but this does not mean that he is superior because of his masculinity.
We came to realise that God calls us all to be saints, not clerics. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) was compiled after consulting every Catholic bishop in the world. The teaching enshrined in it can be accepted as authentic. It states that ‘because Christ chose men as his apostles ... the ordination of women is not possible’ (1577). In Ordinatio sacerdotalis 1994 Pope John Paul II taught “ I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. This teaching was confirmed as “belonging to the deposit of the faith” by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 28th October 1995.
We set up the Association of Catholic Women which was launched on 7th October 1989.and received many letters of encouragement including the following from Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, then President of the Pontifical Council for the Family:-
It is with great pleasure that I learned about the formation of the Association of Catholic Women. This is an important initiative, with parallel ones in other countries, as a reaction to the radical feminist movements which have become so vociferous today in both civil and ecclesiatical societies. Groups like yours provide a great balance for ecclesiatical society by concretely demonstrating that the assertions and demands of the radical feminists do not reflect the views of all Catholic women. It is reassuring that you so openly embrace the enlightened teachings of the Magisterium and support them and the bishops through your prayer and action.
Furthermore, it is praiseworthy that the apostolate of the Association of Catholic Women is also concerned with making its views known in a systematic manner and through the most efficacious means at hand for their widest publication.
It is my prayer that your Association will flourish and accomplish all the good that you intend. I am sure that you, within the Church and in a special way for women, will show what the true meaning and dignity of womanhood is, and provide a strong motivation to follow your example as faithful servants of the loving Father, through his Son, Jesus Christ, after the example, and through the intercession of Our Blessed Mother, Mary, the most perfect of all women.
With my prayerful best wishes for the Association of Catholic Women and a special blessing for all its members, I remain
Cordially in Jesus and Mary
Edouard Cardinal Gagnon
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