'Pink Smoke' demonstration calls for more female leaders in the Catholic church

http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2013/03/pink_smoke_demonstration_calls.html


The Women's Ordination Conference staged a demonstration outside of St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter on Sunday, March 10, to advocate for more female voices in the Catholic Church. (Photo by Juliet Linderman, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

By Juliet Linderman, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on March 10, 2013 at 4:42 PM, updated March 10, 2013 at 10:16 PM

In response to the unorthodox departure of Pope Benedict XVI -- who on Feb. 28 became the first pope to resign from the papacy in six centuries – and the subsequent gathering of 115 male cardinals to designate his replacement, a small group of Catholic women, and a few men, gathered just before noon outside of St. Louis Cathedral on Sunday to advocate for equal rights in the church.

The demonstration, organized by the local chapter of the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC), consisted of prayers, songs and a call for gender equality in the Catholic church that includes the ordination of women as priests, and an expanded effort to include women’s voices in the church and in the Vatican.

On Tuesday, when the conclave officially begins, a chapter of WOC will travel to Rome and send up a plume of pink smoke – a direct response to white smoke that will rise once a new pope is selected – to draw attention to the group’s cause. There will be similar demonstrations in nine cities across the United States.

“(On Tuesday) the women of the church, and the members of the Women’s Ordination Conference, send up pink smoke to protest the lack of women’s voices at the conclave, and to protest the ban on women from all leadership and decision making positions in the church,” said Kim Nunez, clad in a pink T-shirt. “We recognize this 'election' as the celebration of patriarchy, and the painful reminder of the misogyny of the hierarchy.”

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