womens issues

Larisa Friesen Hall 10-22-2012
ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Melanne Verveer visits Shanghai Xintu Center for Community Health Promotion. ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Thanks to Melanne Verveer’s article in Foreign Policy magazine, I’m going to be listening for what the presidential candidates say tonight about women in this foreign policy focused debate. Verveer has served since 2009 as the United States ambassador at large for global women’s issues.  She is the first to ever serve in this particular position. 

Ambassador Verveer is a leading expert in mobilizing support for women’s rights globally, and as a woman of faith, I am paying attention. I believe that women’s rights are human rights and that the advancement and empowerment of women is a central strategy for economic growth and promoting peace and stability around the world. Praise the Lord that this logic is now increasingly understood by government officials and international development organizations and pragmatic good sense. More importantly, as a Christian I believe that Jesus’ liberating word declares that men and women are equal in the eyes of God.

Actions, however, are lagging behind what is now becoming more mainstream thinking.

Amanda Abrams 10-15-2012
Cross illustration, file404 / Shutterstock.com

Cross illustration, file404 / Shutterstock.com

About 30 people are gathered in a dark, makeshift sanctuary at St. Anthony of Padua Church as the sun dips into the horizon. The service follows the familiar pattern of a Catholic Mass, but something is different: The worshippers are dressed casually, many in jeans, and the priest speaks directly and informally to his parishioners. Even the words of the liturgy seem slightly off.

This isn’t a typical Roman Catholic Mass. The church is barely a year old, and it’s part of a new independent Catholic movement, the American National Catholic Church, and bills itself as a home for "Contemporary Catholics."

Founded in 2009 by a bishop and a group of priests seeking a more inclusive religious experience but not ready to leave the Catholic tradition completely, the ANCC aims to follow the spirit of reform established by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

While the sacraments and many fundamental beliefs remain identical to those of Roman Catholicism, the ANCC presents a more progressive version of Catholicism: divorced members can take Communion, women and gays can be ordained, and priests can marry.

Group of a nuns walking, SVLuma/Shutterstock.com

Group of a nuns walking, SVLuma/Shutterstock.com

The Vatican has launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America's 55,000 Catholic nuns, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

Rome also chided the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for sponsoring conferences that featured “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The Vatican’s disciplinary action against the LCWR was announced on Wednesday (April 18), one day before Pope Benedict XVI marked seven years as pontiff.