Ongoing – WATER Teleconference Survey

Please take time to complete this brief survey on WATER’s teleconferences. Your thoughts and suggestions are important to us. The seven-question survey may be found here. We look forward to hearing from you!

February 11 WATER’s Statement on the Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI

Let an Inclusive Church Rise! WATER welcomes the news of the Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and wishes him a peaceful and dignified future. The Pope’s conscience-based decision reflects an honest assessment of his diminished capacity and an enlightened view of the job. We support freedom of conscience in this and in all things, including reproductive and sexual choices. The Pope demonstrated by his abdication that change is afoot in the Catholic community. Rather than business as usual in the election of his successor, we take this as an opportunity to develop new forms of participatory leadership reflecting the diversity and maturity of the Catholic community. Let an inclusive church rise! If substantive structural changes in the church begin to emerge, history will record Pope Benedict XVI with more than an asterisk for having retired. Rather, he will be remembered for ending a period of patriarchal rule and making way for a new era of equality. This is our prayer.

Papal Retirement: A Matter of Conscience

Instead of simply retiring quietly, Joseph Ratzinger might enjoy a good Bavarian beer with the rest of us as part of a renewed Church where all are welcome.

February 13 Teleconference Town Meeting

“Teleconference Town Meeting” with YOU and WATER Colleagues 1 PM - 2 PM EST We need YOU to join us for our February 2013 Teleconference. It is really a Town Meeting of the larger community that listens to and participates in these wonderful monthly events. We want to hear your feedback, get your ideas for topics and people for the months ahead. We have ideas of our own, but we want to hear what you think, whom you think we should invite, what issues we should prioritize.

Remembering Ada María Isasi-Díaz

I am grateful for the life and work of Ada, for her friendship and her solidarity.

February 2013 Ritual: Celebrating Brigit, Goddess of Healing, Holy Saint

By Diann L. Neu | What aspects of Brigit's life do you relate to in your own?

Combat Soldiers & Clergywomen: Problematic Equality

When the celebrations wind down I will be looking for people who want to ask hard questions about how we humans deal with our differences without war.

January 2013 Ritual: A Cup of Blessing for the New Year

By Diann L. Neu | This is the season of endings and beginnings.

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda Teleconference Recommended Resources

All excerpts from "Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-…

January 16 Teleconference with Carol P. Christ

Carol will speak about the book she and Judith Plaskow are writing together, tentatively titled Goddess and God after Feminism: Body, Nature, and Power. Judith and Carol explore their changing views of God in light of their feminist commitments to transform religion. Carol’s feminism led her to reject a God imaged as a dominating male other. Her commitments to peace and justice led her to reject a God whose power is imaged in the Exodus, the prophets, and much of Christian tradition as the power of a warrior to destroy his enemies. Carol can no longer participate in the Protestant or Roman Catholic liturgies because of their invocation of God as male and their association of his power with war and domination.