Called to Serve – Two Women’s Witness

Today we release a short introduction to two women seeking ordination to the diaconate in the Boston region: Philomėne Pèan and Kelly Meraw. Both of them are working in full time positions to serve members of their communities and churches, and feel a longing to be ordained as deacons. This would, they say, be a faithful restoration of ancient orders for women to the diaconate, a respected role women held for centuries before it fell out of practice.

“Called to Serve: Two Women’s Witness” is a short film worked on by documentary filmmakers Pilar Timpane and Andrea Patiño Contreras, and is part of a longer term film project that will look at women’s roles in the Church by Timpane and producer Christine Delp.

This Fall, Pope Francis invites the Church around the world to go on a journey of renewal by becoming a more listening, participatory, and inclusive Church. We hope stories like Kelly and Philomėne can have space to be heard within this inspiring process.

We seek to acknowledge these women’s work and dreams, and to hopefully reimagine how their gifts can be received within the Church. A seat at the table. Respect. To make visible what has so long been invisible. “Called to Serve” brings these women’s witness into full view.Called to Serve: Two Women’s Witness

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Witness
“As a college campus minister, diaconal ordination wouldn’t change how I encounter my students on the margins, but it would change how they encounter the Church through me. I wouldn’t be only Julia, their campus minister who tells them that God loves them unconditionally, but an official representative of a Church that loves them too.”
Julia Erdlen
College Campus Minister and Hospital Chaplain, St. Louis, MO
Witness
“Restoring the diaconate in my church, to include women, supports the hopes and desires of our whole community where I see a longing for both male and female deacons to serve. As soon as I had the opportunity to become an acolyte, I became one. If I had the opportunity to become a deacon, I similarly would rejoice at the opportunity!”
Jessica Kenny
Chaplain, ConnectEd, Alta-1 College, Perth, Western Australia
Witness
“If I were ordained a deacon, it would only be because I have accepted a call to a vocation that is equally accessible to women.“
Oblate James Holzhauer-Chuckas, ObSB
Executive Director of United Catholic Youth Ministries, Chicago, IL

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