Newsletter Winter 2001
Women in Church Leadership Anchor Meeting
The Women in Church Leadership (WICL) anchors met in Cleveland October
20 - 22, 2000 to share successful strategies for the WICL caucus
held in November at the Call to Action conference in Milwaukee. This
was the third gathering of anchors since the program's inception
in 1999.
The WICL anchors are a group of thirty-four
women and men committed to promoting the goals of the Women in
Church Leadership project in their locale. These anchors came to
the meeting with concrete actions they've instituted and items
for discussion.
Jeanne Grammens Hidalgo (Grosse Hamburg,
NY) developed a program for family rituals to facilitate a child's
focus on God's love and Jesus around the holiday. Karen Hnat (New
Hartford, NY) shared her story of a parish losing its wonderful
pastor and support staff in spite of organized efforts by parishioners
to keep them. The on-going battle has divided the parish. Meg Summersgill
(East Aurora, NY) reported on a new program she organized called
"Conversations," a gathering of women from area colleges in Buffalo.
Also, the VOICES project, aimed at nurturing the spiritual life
of girls and yougn women, will publish six manuals in 2002. Nancy
Bloch (St. Clair Shores, MI) sent along a program on facilitating
meaningful prayers for children.
Barbara Ballenger and Fr. Steve Krupa
SJ gave a preview of the coming FutureChurch Celebrating Women
Witnesses (CWW) project by telling the group about the Beguines
and Dorothy Day. These and descriptions of the lives of ten other
women will be included in the CWW project packet.
On November 5, twenty women representing
parishes from coast to caost gathered for a WICL caucus at the
Call to Action national conference. Our anchors shared their experiences
and recruited more members.
The consensus from both meetings was
that there is a lot of good work happening on the local level.
FutureChurch is working to ensure and promote this networking on
an ongoing basis. The next meeting of the WICL anchors will be
held at St. Mary's College in South Bend, IN and will coincide
with the annual Madaleva lecture in April.
