- Feb 5, 2002
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Sixty-four percent of American Catholics say the Church should allow women to be ordained as priests, according to Pew Research. In several Latin American countries, women’s ordination is even more popular (in Brazil, a staggering 83 percent of Catholics are in favor). The survey was released just a few months after the late Pope Francis rejected the possibility of female deacons during an interview with 60 Minutes, a rejection all the more relevant after the question was raised in the Synod on Synodality. James Keating, in a 2025 article for First Things, elaborated the theological reasons why female ordination to the diaconate, let alone the priesthood, is impossible. And as a recent report has it, all sources indicate the official collapse of the conversation.
I am genuinely baffled by the question of female ordination. Journalists are eager to highlight fringe groups like the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and the Women’s Ordination Conference when they’re on the march, and surely there exist some women who want to be priests. But I have never met one in the wild. And by now I should have.
When I was twenty-one, I joined the Ann Arbor Dominicans, one of the few communities in the world to countervail the trend of demographic collapse. My novitiate of forty included women of every age, from across the country, and even from Melbourne, British Columbia, and Jakarta. We had an Air Force vet, an astronautical engineer, and a scientist, as well as teachers and plenty of women who, like myself, had left school to join. For all our differences, what we shared was the white martyrdom, the hunger to be perfectly poured out, that had drawn us to the consecrated life.
Oprah came to the motherhouse in the early 2000s to document life in the chapel and cloister. She interviewed some women to learn why they had entered and also toured the house. As you walk through the halls you see impeccably kept cells, larger than you would imagine, with a window, a rocker, and a desk in addition to the bed. Dominicans live a joyful, studious, balanced life, and care for souls primarily through teaching. The expansive charism that marries monastic practice to the apostolate is derived from Christ’s model, whose daily ministry was complemented by contemplative union with his Father.
Not one of my sisters wanted to be a priest.
Continued below.
I am genuinely baffled by the question of female ordination. Journalists are eager to highlight fringe groups like the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and the Women’s Ordination Conference when they’re on the march, and surely there exist some women who want to be priests. But I have never met one in the wild. And by now I should have.
When I was twenty-one, I joined the Ann Arbor Dominicans, one of the few communities in the world to countervail the trend of demographic collapse. My novitiate of forty included women of every age, from across the country, and even from Melbourne, British Columbia, and Jakarta. We had an Air Force vet, an astronautical engineer, and a scientist, as well as teachers and plenty of women who, like myself, had left school to join. For all our differences, what we shared was the white martyrdom, the hunger to be perfectly poured out, that had drawn us to the consecrated life.
Oprah came to the motherhouse in the early 2000s to document life in the chapel and cloister. She interviewed some women to learn why they had entered and also toured the house. As you walk through the halls you see impeccably kept cells, larger than you would imagine, with a window, a rocker, and a desk in addition to the bed. Dominicans live a joyful, studious, balanced life, and care for souls primarily through teaching. The expansive charism that marries monastic practice to the apostolate is derived from Christ’s model, whose daily ministry was complemented by contemplative union with his Father.
Not one of my sisters wanted to be a priest.
Continued below.
