Old Catholic Apostolic Church synod to promote ordination of women

‘A new initiative of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church, ‘Ecclesia Sophia’ has come into being to help (among others) a large number of Roman Catholic women who have been frustrated with the refusal of Rome to ordain women’.

The Old Catholic churches are a group of Western churches who believe themselves to maintain with complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the early church but separated from Rome in 1870. The Old Catholic Churches therefore are autonomous and do not follow the dictates of Rome. They began to ordain women in The Netherlands in 1998.

Catholic feminist writer and campaigner, the Reverend Debra Flint, said “In recent years a very large number of Roman Catholic women have become increasingly frustrated with the refusal of Rome to ordain women.

"This frustration is due to the indisputable fact that women were ordained in the early church. There is a vast amount of evidence to demonstrate that women were ordained as deacons until the ninth century.

"There is also other evidence that demonstrates that female Abbesses had the power and governance of bishops in both Anglo Saxon England and Ireland.

"I, myself, as a Catholic feminist writer and campaigner, have demonstrated in my book ‘No Place for a Woman’ that the demise of women within Roman Catholicism was largely due to growing patriarchal trends and the development of misogyny within the Christian West.

“Due to this I left the RC Church in 2021 and joined the independent Catholic movement.”

The Old Catholic churches are a group of Western churches that are autonomous and do not follow the dictates of Rome. They began to ordain women in The Netherlands in 1998.

Rev Flint said: “Catholic women have had enough of being told that we are a substandard version of humanity. We have had enough of being told that only men can image Christ. We have had enough of being told that our spirituality is inferior.

"We have had enough of being told by an archaic mediaeval church, even now in the twenty-first century, that our role is to be wives and mothers.

“With this in mind both myself and Bishop Paula of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church have come together to create a new initiative to promote the ordination of Catholic women – Ecclesia Sophia.”

The initiative seeks to assist women to discern a call for ordination or consecration within a Catholic Church.

Any woman who wants to know more about discerning ordination or consecration can contact Bishop Paula (bishop.paulawillemijn@oldcatholicapostolicchurch.nl ) or Rev’d Debra Maria Flint (debramaria1@outlook.com).