Sadly John (Hans) Wijngaards died on 2 January 2025 and is now united with his beloved wife Jackie. For over 4 decades they worked for the equality of women and LGBTQ+ people in the Catholic Church. Hans' 1998 press statement about his public resignation from the priesthood because of the discrimination against women being excluded from ordination is still a powerful call to arms today to all Catholics:

https://www.johnwijngaards.com/publicity/ Hans was born in 1935 in Indonesia and as a child spent 4 years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. In 1959 he was ordained as a Mill Hill Missionary, whom he led as Vicar General for 6 years. He worked as a missionary in India where he first met Jackie. In 1998 he resigned as a priest and in 2000 he married Jackie Clackson. He was one of the main speakers at the First Women’s Ordination Worldwide Conference in Dublin in 2001. With Jackie he set up the Housetop Institute in London in 1982 for Faith formation and promoting Women Priests. He published many books, his most recent being “Why Christ Rejects All Church Prejudice Against Women” (December 2024).He gave so much to the Women's Ordination movement, speaking as a priest, a theologian, and a married man. The legacy of Hans and Jackie will live on in the work of the Wijngaards Institute.https://www.johnwijngaards.com/

Colm Holmes, Chair WAC International