Half the Church

Today is the Feast of the Presentation — the day we remember Mary and Joseph bringing the infant Jesus to the Temple. It's a feast about recognition. Simeon sees the child and knows who he is. Anna the prophetess speaks about him to everyone who would listen.

Anna. A woman. Recognized by the Gospel as a prophetess. She didn't wait for permission to proclaim what she saw. She just spoke.

I've been thinking about women in the Church lately. Not as a political topic — though it inevitably becomes one — but as a practical reality. Women are the majority of Mass attendees, the majority of parish volunteers, the majority of religious education teachers, the majority of people who keep the daily operations of Catholic life running. They are, in the most literal sense, more than half the Church.

And yet their role in Church governance and leadership remains constrained by structures that predate every living Catholic.

CCOC has partnered with the Discerning Deacons Project since its early days. This partnership reflects our conviction that the question of women in ministry — including the diaconate — is not a fringe concern. It's central to the kind of Church that the synod envisions.

The Synod's Final Document was clear: "There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church." Pope Francis adopted those words into his magisterium. They are not suggestions. They are teachings.

What does implementation look like? It looks like women serving as instituted lectors, acolytes, and catechists — ministries that are already canonically open to them but inconsistently offered. It looks like women leading parish pastoral councils, diocesan offices, and formation programs — not as exceptions, but as the norm. It looks like the Church taking seriously the theological argument that ordained authority has expanded beyond its original purpose and that re-examining that expansion could open new paths for women.

I'm an architect, not a theologian. But I know something about structures. When a structure is designed for one purpose and then asked to serve another, stress develops. The solution isn't to pretend the stress doesn't exist. It's to redesign.

The women I know in CCOC — Gretchen Jezerc, our Vice President; Jan Hayes, our Treasurer; the focus group coordinators and members who do extraordinary work — don't need me to speak for them. They speak quite well for themselves. What they need are structures that actually hear them.

This month, as we celebrate Black History and prepare for Lent, let's also take a moment to recognize the Annas in our midst. The women who see clearly, who speak truthfully, and who keep this Church alive in ways that don't always make it into the bulletins.

Half the Church isn't asking for half the power. It's asking for the recognition that service and leadership are not opposed — and that the people who do the most of one deserve access to the other.