“I dream of a Church that receives and empowers the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given to each member. Ordaining women to the diaconate is one important way to recognize and strengthen the diaconal ministry that is already exercised by Catholic women everywhere. I’m excited to walk with others into a vision of a listening and participatory Church, opening up new pathways for encounter and dialogue between Church leaders and Catholic women.”

Luke Hansen, a former co-director of Discerning Deacons, has worked as a teacher, campus minister, journalist and prison chaplain. He has an MA in social philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has studied the history of women as deacons and the restoration of the permanent diaconate at the Second Vatican Council. He has served as a contributing editor for the Jesuit journals America and La Civiltà Cattolica in Rome. He has reported from three Synods of Bishops in Rome, and he has won several awards from the Catholic Press Association for his writing.