Catholic Women in Ministry: The Surprising Influence I Discovered After Becoming Catholic
Focus Keyphrase: Catholic women in ministry
Before becoming Catholic, I thought I understood Christian ministry.
After all, I had spent more than forty years in Protestant ministry and had served as a female pastor. I came from a tradition where women could be ordained, preach and occupy pastoral leadership.
So when I began seriously investigating Catholicism, one question was impossible for me to avoid:
If the Catholic Church does not ordain women to the priesthood, where does that leave women like me?
I assumed that Catholic women must have considerably less opportunity to influence the Church.
I was wrong.
What surprised me was not merely discovering what Catholic women could do. It was discovering that I had been measuring Christian ministry by too narrow a standard.
I had confused ordination with calling and office with influence.
Catholicism challenged me to think again.
God Doesn’t Need Any of Us
There is an important truth we need to establish first.
God doesn’t need women.
Before anyone gets upset with me—He doesn’t need men either!
St Paul tells the people of Athens that God is not:
“served by human hands, as though he needed anything.”
— Acts 17:25
God doesn’t need priests, bishops, theologians, missionaries, YouTubers—or former Protestant pastors!
He is God.
Yet throughout salvation history, the God who needs nothing continually chooses to work through human beings.
Why?
Because participation in God’s work is itself a gift.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 306, teaches that God grants His creatures the dignity of cooperating in the accomplishment of His plan.
That’s an extraordinary idea.
God gives us the dignity of cooperation.
Our ministry isn’t primarily about God needing our talents.
It is about God loving us enough to invite us into His work.
And once I understood that, I could begin looking at Catholic women’s ministry very differently.
Mother Angelica: She Didn’t Wait for a Pulpit
One of the most striking modern examples is Mother Angelica.
She wasn’t a priest.
Yet the Poor Clare nun founded EWTN, which grew from remarkably humble beginnings into an international Catholic media network.
Think about the significance of that.
A Catholic woman who could never be ordained to the priesthood nevertheless found herself communicating the Catholic faith to people around the world.
She taught.
She evangelised.
She founded.
She communicated.
She influenced generations of Catholics.
Mother Angelica didn’t need access to the priesthood to have an extraordinary influence upon the Church.
She used the vocation and opportunities God had actually given her.
And perhaps there is a lesson for us there.
Sometimes we become so preoccupied with the door that isn’t ours that we fail to notice the doors God has already opened.
Catholic Women Are Teaching Theology
This was another discovery that challenged my assumptions.
Women aren’t excluded from serious Catholic theological scholarship.
Women teach Scripture.
Women teach theology.
Women write books.
Women work in Catholic universities.
Women participate in theological research.
Women teach future generations of Catholics—including men preparing for ordained ministry.
Consider Catholic biblical scholar Mary Healy, for example. Her work demonstrates something that should be obvious but is sometimes lost in arguments about women’s ordination:
A woman doesn’t need to become a priest to become a serious theological voice within the Church.
A woman may teach theology that priests study.
She may write books that clergy read.
She may contribute to the formation and evangelisation of thousands of Catholics.
Her vocation is different from the priest’s.
Different does not mean inferior.
Women Are Also Exercising Significant Responsibility
There are developments happening within the institutional Church as well.
In January 2025, Pope Francis appointed Simona Brambilla as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
That appointment matters.
It demonstrates that recognising women’s gifts and entrusting women with significant responsibility does not require changing the sacramental theology of the priesthood.
And that distinction is tremendously important.
We don’t have to choose between:
“Women must be priests”
and
“Women can’t do anything important.”
Those aren’t our only two options.
The reality of Catholic life is far richer.
The Internet Has Opened an Enormous Mission Field
There is also something about our generation that we shouldn’t underestimate.
Technology has transformed evangelisation.
A Catholic woman sitting at her kitchen table can publish something today that may be read in Britain, America, Australia, Africa or Asia tomorrow.
We have YouTube.
Podcasts.
Substack.
Blogs.
Books.
Social media.
Online Bible studies.
Digital catechesis.
A woman doesn’t necessarily need somebody to give her a church platform before she can begin sharing Christ.
Of course, that freedom brings responsibility.
What we teach should be faithful to Scripture and the teaching of the Church.
But the missionary opportunity is extraordinary.
Jesus commanded His followers:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
— Matthew 28:19
For Christians living in the twenty-first century, part of those “nations” can now be reached through a screen.
Then I Had to Look at Myself
This wasn’t simply an interesting theological question for me.
It became painfully personal.
I had been a Protestant pastor.
Becoming Catholic meant accepting that the Catholic Church teaches that priestly ordination is reserved to men.
That wasn’t an abstract doctrine anymore.
It had consequences for my life.
I had to relinquish the kind of ministerial identity I had known.
And somewhere along that journey I had to ask myself:
If I’m no longer a pastor, has God finished with me?
The answer turned out to be no.
But my understanding of calling needed to change.
I began to realise that perhaps I had associated God’s calling too closely with a particular role.
God hadn’t stopped calling me.
The shape of my response had changed.
From Pulpit to Pew — But Not Into Silence
The name From Pulpit to Pew expresses something very real about my journey.
I moved from being the person behind the Protestant pulpit to becoming the Catholic woman sitting in the pew.
But here’s the surprise:
The pew wasn’t the end of ministry.
I can write.
I can study.
I can create videos.
I can discuss theology.
I can encourage other women.
I can share what I have learned from my journey into Catholicism.
I can talk openly about the questions I wrestled with concerning women and priesthood.
I can evangelise.
And perhaps most importantly, I can continue learning what it means simply to follow Jesus Christ faithfully.
My ministry didn’t disappear.
I discovered that my calling was bigger than my title.
But What If You’re Not Mother Angelica?
This is where I think we need to be careful.
Articles about Catholic women can easily become lists of extraordinary people.
Mother Angelica built a television network.
Other women become theologians, authors or senior Church officials.
And perhaps you’re reading this thinking:
“That’s lovely, Paula—but I’m not one of those women.”
Neither am I.
And you don’t need to be.
Christian ministry isn’t measured by celebrity.
You may never have a YouTube channel.
You may never write a book.
You may never teach theology.
You may never have thousands of followers.
Your ministry might happen around your kitchen table.
It may be teaching your grandchildren to pray.
It might be accompanying someone through bereavement.
It could be serving your parish.
Perhaps you’re caring for somebody who’s ill.
Perhaps you’re quietly praying for your family.
Perhaps you are the person who notices the lonely woman sitting by herself after Mass and walks over to speak to her.
Nobody may ever applaud you.
But God sees faithfulness differently from the way social media measures success.
Stop Asking Whether You’re Important Enough
Maybe this is where we have been asking the wrong question.
Instead of:
“Am I important enough for God to use?”
try asking:
“Lord, what have You already put in my hands?”
Perhaps you have experience.
Perhaps you have wisdom gained through suffering.
Perhaps you understand grief because you’ve lived through it.
Perhaps you can write.
Teach.
Listen.
Cook.
Organise.
Pray.
Encourage.
Create.
Perhaps God is asking you to do something that seems ridiculously small.
Don’t dismiss it.
St Paul writes:
“For we are God’s fellow workers.”
— 1 Corinthians 3:9
What an extraordinary description of Christian vocation.
Not because God cannot manage without us.
But because He chooses to include us.
Catholic Women: Perhaps We Need a Better Question
The discussion surrounding Catholic women so often begins and ends with:
“Why can’t women become priests?”
I understand that question.
I had to wrestle with it myself.
But perhaps there is another question Catholic women urgently need to ask:
“What IS God calling me to do?”
That question changed things for me.
Mother Angelica’s vocation wasn’t mine.
A Catholic theologian’s vocation isn’t necessarily yours.
The woman serving quietly in her parish has another calling.
And none of us needs to compete with the priesthood to prove that our lives matter.
The Church needs holy priests.
She also needs holy women.
Women who pray.
Women who think.
Women who teach.
Women who evangelise.
Women who create.
Women who serve.
Women courageous enough to discover their own vocation rather than spending their lives wishing for somebody else’s.
The Question I’m Asking Now
My journey from Protestant pastor to Catholic has left me with a very different question than the one with which I began.
I used to wonder:
“What position can a woman hold?”
Today I’m much more interested in asking:
“Lord, where are You asking me to be faithful?”
Perhaps that’s a question worth taking into prayer this week.
God doesn’t need you.
He chooses you.
Not because His plan would collapse without you.
But because, in His love, He gives you the extraordinary dignity of participating in it.
And perhaps your next step begins with one very simple prayer:
“Lord, show me what You have put in my hands—and give me the courage to use it.”
☕ Continue the Conversation on Substack
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Thank you for reading From Pulpit to Pew and for being part of this growing conversation about faith, truth, vocation and what it really means to follow Christ.
God bless you,
Paula Rose Parish M.A.
From Pulpit to Pew
https://paularoseparish.substack.com
https://www.youtube.com/@PulpitToPew
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/paula-rose-
I once thought Catholic women had less influence because they could not be ordained. Becoming Catholic changed my understanding of ministry, calling and what it means for women to serve God.
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