History

THE CCWO YEARS: 1981-1987

In January of 1981, four women theology students, Ellen Leonard CSJ, Alexina Murphy, Bernadette McMahon of Toronto and Judy Maier of Ottawa sent out a letter to contacts across Canada sharing their plan to start a Canadian organization to work for the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. They announced their intent to hold an organizational meeting in Toronto in July of the same year. Responses to this letter were received from across the country. Regular meetings of interested women began almost immediately in Toronto. In May the first meeting of a group of Ottawa women was held. Other women around the country were also communicating and connecting. The story had began.

THE FOUNDING CONFERENCE

On the weekend of July 3-5 1981, thirty women from across Canada gathered in Toronto for an organizational meeting. Prayer and ritual, serious deliberation and joyful celebration marked this weekend and twenty-two pages of carefully recorded minutes speak to the vision of these women for a renewed Catholic Church. The final statement issued by the group reads as follows:

We, the Canadian Catholics for Women's Ordination affirm women's personhood in Christ's church. We recognize our equality in Christ. We desire that all have the opportunity to participate in the life of the Church. We maintain that this participation requires the ordination of women to Sacramental Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. We witness to the presence of priestly ministry. We, therefore , ask our sisters and brothers: Will you publicly support the ordination of women to Sacramental Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church?

Will you work towards the ordination of women in our Church?

The press release that accompanied this statement was entitled, ORDAIN WOMEN OR STOP BAPTIZING THEM.

DEVELOPING THE MOVEMENT

The period following this meeting in Toronto was characterized by tremendous energy as an increasing number of committed women around the country worked together to build the organization. Faced with the difficulty of building an organization in a country which is geographically large but small in population, one can only be impressed with the commitment of these women pioneers. Over the next years the organization received significant coverage in the Catholic and mainstream press. Contacts were established with women's ordination movements in the United States and Europe. Small local groups were started in a number of communities across Canada. Committees were formed and the practical tasks of running a national organization were addressed. A meeting was arranged with Cardinal Carter in order to share with him CCWO's vision of Church.

Over the next years CCWO members reached out to Canadian Catholic women through letters, presentations and a regularly published newsletter. Many members regularly replaced their Sunday offering, or at least part of their offering, with CCWO dollars on which were printed text that spoke to issues of women's ordination. By using this currency women were able to communicate their vision of a renewed Church as well as an unwillingness to support financially an institution which refused to recognize women as fully baptized members, some of whom felt be called to ordination.

PUBLIC ACTION

In 1985, CCWO women in Toronto made their first courageous public action in support of the aims of CCWO. When Cardinal Ratzinger was invited to Toronto to launch the annual St. Michael's College president's lecture series, viewed to be an attempt by the Toronto Church to publicly chastise theologians and others giving renewed interpretations to our faith tradition, the necessity of public response was clear. A demonstration outside the arena where Cardinal Ratzinger was speaking saw CCWO women articulating their vision publically in the face of considerable abuse from those attending the event. The media coverage resulted in CCWO's message getting out across the country.

COMMUNICATION WITH THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH

From the beginning CCWO kept the institutional church informed of the development of the movement, the issues of concern and the vision of Church shared by those who had joined the movement. Over the next three years there was much communication between (or sometimes simply to ) the Canadian bishops and CCWO. CCWO also acted as an advocate for women attending schools of theology as part time students who were facing conflicts with requirements for a semester of full time studies and family responsibilities. As part of its development plan, in 1987 CCWO placed an advertisement in the Vocation Supplement of Catholic New Times, an independent Catholic newspaper with a strong social justice focus, published in Toronto and birthed just five years before CCWO. CCWO arranged conferences that brought women together from across the country and press releases speak to the quality of these gatherings.

WRITE DOWN THE VISION

It was at the 1987 conference, WRITE DOWN THE VISION , hosted by the Ottawa group, that a wider image of what this organization was about began to emerge. A mission statement and aims were adopted that reflected a broader awareness of the interconnectedness of various issues related to women both in the institutional church and in society as a whole and these have remained as our guiding principals until today.

There was conflict for the first time at this conference but as one member noted good things came out of the turmoil. It was at this conference that the national character of the organization really took shape as individuals and groups across the county volunteered to take on tasks which until this time had for the most part been centered in Toronto. A group from the Nova Scotia volunteered to act as an interim core group, the newsletter was to be published in Prince George BC, the Ottawa Group volunteered to develop a proposal for the structure of the organization and to seek input from the membership, the Vancouver Group took on the responsibility for working with the membership to develop a new name for the organization that reflected the broader aims of the movement. The Toronto Group agreed to host the 1988 conference which would mainly focus on the name change. It is encouraging to see how these women, spread out over a huge geographic area, and without the support of electronic messaging were able to invite all the membership to participate in the discernment around these issues and to get responses from a good majority.

DESIGNING AN ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK

The Ottawa Group developed a number of models for organization. Input received from members indicated that a federated model was preferred with a national co-ordinating committee. The local group was seen to be the life of the organization. Aware of Canada's geographic expanse, however, individuals would be well connected to the movement by means of the newsletter and regular communications. Many who could not be actively involved in the movement were clear that their membership provided financial support to allow CCWO to work on behalf of women in the Church.

DISCERNING A NAME CHANGE

During the same period the Vancouver Group sent out NAMING AS A PROPHETIC ACT, communication to members across the country around the development of new name. A criteria was included for selection of the name which included that it literally and metaphorically reflect the purpose and character of the organization.

At the Toronto conference in June of 1988 a list of proposed names from across the country were presented to the membership. A facilitator led the group through a two day process that finally saw those gathered choosing between a new name proposed at the conference, CATHOLIC NETWORK FOR WOMEN'S EQUALITY (CNWE) and the original CANADIAN CATHOLICS FOR WOMEN'S ORDINATION (CCWO). The first name was adopted and when the CCWO Core Group sent this name out to all members for ratification the response was overwhelmingly supportive. And so from 1988 we became known by this new name. The acronym for our organization, CNWE (pronounced CAN WE) became a powerful question to which we answer a resounding "Yes we can!"