Women’s event at World Meeting of Families just a ‘stunt’, claim campaigners
FOR the first time ever, the Catholic Church’s World Meeting of Families event has introduced a special add-on ‘women’s symposium’ to its programme of events at the behest of its Irish organisers.
In documents seen by the Irish Independent, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin – the president of WMOF2018, which takes place in Dublin this August – has invited a number of high-profile female executives to address the Women’s Leadership Symposium, ‘Voices of Impact: Women Leaders Shaping Global Change’. It will be held over August 24-25.
The inclusion of the new event follows a row between Dr Martin and Culture Minister Josepha Madigan over her role in a prayer service in her parish and her comments over the need for women priests and the overall position of women in the Catholic Church.
However, the move, which is aimed at highlighting women in leadership, has been criticised as being nothing more than “a stunt to present the Catholic Church as women-friendly” by a Catholic reform group, We Are Church Ireland.
In a statement to this newspaper, the group of laymen and women described it as “disingenuous” for the archbishop and WMOF organisers to seek to “celebrate the success of women in business and society while ignoring their continued second-class status in the Roman Catholic Church”.
It continued: “Women are excluded by church law from governance, meaningful decision-making and all ordained ministries.”
The group called on women to decline the invitations and said the event was “being used to manipulate them against their own sisters struggling on the margins of both church and society for equality and justice”.
Those handpicked women invited to participate in the symposium have been promised entry to the Festival of Families, which takes place in Croke Park on the evening of August 25.
Pope Francis will attend to hear Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and see Riverdance perform before a crowd of up to 80,000.
The invitation to the symposium says it is based on “the simple yet powerful premise that the changing role of women across all spectrums of life is having a real and positive influence on the future of society”.
Speakers will focus on the challenges that women face in serving their families, careers and communities.
But according to We Are Church Ireland, the event is “a cynical exercise to pretend to the outside world and Pope Francis that successful Catholic women support existing structural injustices in the Catholic Church”.
A spokesman for the group added: “No Mary McAleese or any woman campaigning for equality in the Church will be invited.”
Spokeswoman for WMOF2018 Brenda Drumm told the Irish Independent that ‘Voices of Impact: Women Leaders Shaping Global Change’ would be co-chaired by Susan Davis and Norah Casey.
Susan Davies’s company has been named one of the Top 5 US public affairs agencies.
The line-up of speakers, who are drawn from across the world, is due to be announced soon.