“Women are knocking on the door of the church…. But I fear a generation will come that will stop knocking,” Dr. Carolyn Woo, president and C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services, said at the Vatican on March 8 during a panel discussion organized by Voices of Faith, a Catholic women’s international network. “This conversation about women is not for women, it is for the church,” Woo told the third annual gathering of Voices of Faith to celebrate International Women’s Day. Geralyn Sheehan, country director for the U.S. Peace Corps in Colombia, noted that mothers are the ones who teach children about service and worried over a generational change that suggests there are fewer young women in the church today. She spoke too about the fact that women are so often victims of physical violence and sexual behavior, adding that it is an issue the church must address.

This article appears in March 28 2016.