Sometimes we carry wounds for a lifetime, and then something happens that breaks our hearts enough to let us know that it’s time to speak. I no longer feel that I can be silent about the pain I’ve experienced as a woman in the Catholic Church.
Maybe it’s because I have a daughter now, and she’s full of both faith and fire. Maybe it’s because I believed Pope Francis when he stood in front of thousands of people and chanted “todos, todos, todos,” promising a church with space for all of us. Or maybe it’s because ecumenism is real. As I’ve watched Sarah Mullally, the first woman to serve as archbishop of Canterbury, meet with Pope Leo, listen to Palestinian Christians, and address church leaders in Jerusalem, I can’t help but reimagine the rooms that we as faithful women might belong in.
All I know is that something is shifting inside of me. To tell the truth about what we’ve been living is the only way I know to be faithful now.
