By Ellie Hidalgo
On the first day of 2024, World Peace Day, Pope Francis said something remarkable about the power of women: “The world, too, needs to look to mothers and to women in order to find peace, to emerge from the spiral of violence and hatred, and once more see things with genuinely human eyes and hearts.”
As co-director of Discerning Deacons, my hopes were buoyed that the conversation about expanding women’s participation in the Catholic Church would continue to grow, given pressing pastoral needs.
After all, during my 12 years’ experience working in pastoral ministry in East Los Angeles, I witnessed the courage of Catholic women who helped to lead a community response effort after a 10-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet while on a scooter in front of her home. Immigrant women from Mexico and Central America wore green shirts and stood outside their homes so that children would have safe passage to and from school. Throughout the year, they organized peace walks and reached out to youth.
Gang members respected the mothers and did not shoot at each other or harass young people if mothers and grandmothers were visibly present.
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