Future Church

On April 27, 2007, Sister Christine Schenk, CSJ, executive director of "Future Church" addressed the Southwest Florida Call to Action members. She sketched the history of Future Church beginning in 1990 with her Ohio home parish response to parish closings and the instruction on "Sunday worship in the absence of a priest." They were soon joined by other parishes in formulating a resolution that the Eucharist is more important than the marital status or gender of the celebrant. She asked her community, the Sisters of St. Joseph, to support her for three years while she worked full time on Future Church. They agreed. In 1994, they started working with CTA chapters to determine how to organize in individual dioceses around the priest shortage. She has been to over 60 dioceses to address this topic.

When Pope John Paul II issued a document stating that women could not be ordained, and a vatican office followed up to say this was infallible, Future Church prepared a packet on "Women in Church Leadership" and made it available for those who wanted to study the historical role of women leadership in the church. The July 22 celebration of the feast of Mary Magdala was a continuation of this, as she was the first to see the risen Jesus and was told by him to go and inform everyone of his resurrection. She is also an example of how women's stories get lost since most history is written by men.

In 2005, the Synod of Bishops was on the Eucharist. Future Church took up a petition to have mandatory celibacy and women deacons included on the agenda and got 35,000 signatures for this effort. The topics were not formally included, but some bishops did speak up and request more discussion. Future Church is now working on the 2008 Synod on the Word of God, asking to "Put Women Back in the Biblical Picture!" They have four requests for the synod agenda:

Invite women biblical experts to the synod. No women theologians were included in the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist.
Devote more pastoral attention to Jesus' and St. Paul's inclusion of women leaders.
Expand opportunities for women preachers so both women and men can hear the Word through the lens of Christian women.
Restore biblical women leaders to lectionary readings in which their witness was diminished or deleted.