The number of U.S. parishes without resident pastors has leveled off to about 3,400, according to the latest data from CARA—but only after dioceses have closed down thousands of churches since 1990.
As a woman in leadership in the church, I think we are having the wrong conversation when we focus so narrowly on the question of women deacons that we fail to see the ways Catholic women can—and already do—lead.
Our survey of Catholic women found little opposition to the ordination of women as permanent deacons, but a survey of U.S. bishops revealed more skepticism of the idea.