Does the Church Have a Stained-Glass Ceiling?

Did you miss them? Did their absence reverberate like silence in a vast vacuum of negative space?

Well, guess what? That was precisely the feeling they wanted to effect. The wheels of the Church, they were certain, would grind to a halt without their many hands to steer it. And things would never be the same again.

…I’m sorry, have I lost you? You seem puzzled. Just what, you ask, am I talking about? Well, isn’t this awkward. I can’t believe you missed one of the most dramatic and impactful ecclesial events of our time. Do you mean to tell me you never heard of the Catholic Women Strike?

On March 5, 2025, Catholic women “around the world” began a Lenten strike, “withholding time, labor, and financial resources from the Roman Catholic Church,” proclaimed a press release. Hundreds, if not thousands — maybe even millions! — of women would, with this great refusal, “disrupt a patriarchal status quo that too often depends on the invisible labor and good will of women.” Oh, was this going to be good — the patriarchy would be made to endure a 40-day involuntary fast from females. It was billed as a “Global Witness for Equality” — and wouldn’t the Earth tremble and shake!

Surely, you remember all this. No? I mean, it was supposed to be a pretty big deal. Women, after all, make up more than half the Catholic population and compose a majority (about 80 percent) of lay ecclesial ministers in the United States. And, boy howdy, were they upset! They were “ready — beyond ready — for the church to recognize their equality. And they’re willing to take great risks to make that known,” strike organizer Kate McElwee told the National Catholic Reporter (Dec. 3, 2024). It would be a sterling moment of solidarity in sisterhood, a monumental blow against the sexist system. “People will feel women’s absence,” McElwee forewarned. Some women went so far as to fire off strongly worded emails to their pastors explaining why they wouldn’t be present at Mass. Ain’t that stickin’ it to the man! Gosh, the clerics who’d availed themselves of patriarchal privilege must have been shaking in their cassocks.