News and Media Releases

We Are Church supporter, Soline Humbert, invites you to buy her book and journey with her vocation.

As a student in Trinity College Dublin, Soline Humbert experienced a call to the priesthood in the Catholic Church, which she was unable to pursue because of the ban on women’s ordination. She found herself on a collision course with a powerful church hierarchy intent on quashing any such vocation, and was even warned of excommunication if she persisted.

In this ground-breaking memoir, Soline candidly shares her struggles, her dark nights of the soul and her ecstasies, as well as her decades-long effort to bring about an end to women’s exclusion from the priesthood. She is told again and again: ‘The door to women’s ordination was shut and would remain shut.’ And that was that.

 But as the Catholic Church continues its decline in weekly Mass attendance, its huge drop in male celibate priestly vocations and waning cultural significance, as it reels from decades of scandals due to child sexual abuse by clergy, it is becoming increasingly clear that the time for change is at hand. A Divine Calling is an inspirational story of hope, determination, courage and one woman’s passionate desire to make a difference.

Available on 24 September 2025 from

The LIffey Press, Ireland and worldwide

Also in Ireland  Books.ie

In UK, Pen and Sword Books

Amazon

"Out of Africa can rise a hope capable of reawakening the whole Church” — Stan Chu Ilo

In VoiceAfrique, Professor Stan Chu Ilo introduces his article thus:

"The Catholic Church faces its own exhaustion. For centuries, it seemed an unshakable moral anchor. Through Christendom and global missions, the papacy exerted extraordinary influence. Today, beneath its familiar rituals, the cracks are evident. Membership is shrinking in much of the West. Debates over sexuality, morality, and governance deepen divisions. The link between faith and everyday life weakens. In too many places, Catholic witness feels muted, leadership defensive, imagination tired. There is even a contest over which version of Catholicism defines the Church—an old struggle that intensified under Francis and resurfaced in the election of Pope Leo."

"The question is not whether the old order can be restored. It cannot. The deeper challenge is whether a new vision can emerge. Can Catholicism recover a space of hope and spiritual imagination strong enough to respond to this global crisis of history and modernity?"

Read the whole article

We Are Church International wish to make it clear that we have not been invited to meet with Pope Leo XlV in October as reported in some media.

We applied to take part in the Jubilee of the Synod Teams 24-26 October 2025 in Rome as another participating organization. We were pleased that our registration was accepted upon submission. To us, this is a positive sign that confirms the Church is listening to everyone.

Along with many hundreds of delegates from around the world we look forward to hearing Pope Leo XlV deliver his address. But we are clear that no special meeting will take place with the pope and our group.

Press contacts:
Colm Holmes, Chair We Are Church International  
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.      Phone: +353 86606 3636

Dr Martha Heizer, Vice-Chair We Are Church International
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.            Phone: +43 650 4168500

The Synodal Process: Ten concrete initiatives we would like to see

Dear Bishops,

The Final Document of the Synod on Synodality allows different decisions to be reached in different places.  This represents unity in diversity. After 4 years of listening and dialogue and prayer it is past time for concrete initiatives to be taken with all the baptised for reform of structures and institutions. This is a crucial point in the entire process: Without concrete changes in the short term, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible. Pope Leo XlV has endorsed Pope Francis’ synodal process for which appropriate decision making and decision taking processes need to be developed at all levels.

We call on you to support appropriate and concrete initiatives in our dioceses, including:

1.  Competent Women and Men preaching and leading parishes.
2. Lay led liturgies with communion
3. Co-operation, mutual attendance and Eucharistic hospitality at services in other Christian churches
4. Majority voting on Parish & Diocesan Pastoral Councils and Minutes published online
5. Annual publication of Financial Reports
6. Ordination of Women Deacons
7. Ad Limina Reports published online
8. Diocesan Pastoral Councils recommending Nominations as Bishops
9. Fair financial support and professional guidance for those affected by sexualised abuse in the church
10. Pastoral care for LGBTQ+ people in every parish.

We Are Church International will support such concrete initiatives.

With synodal blessings,

Colm Holmes, Chair, We Are Church International
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: +353 86606 3636

Dr Martha Heizer, Vice-Chair, We Are Church International
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: +43 650 4168500

Dear Joint CEC-CCEE Working Group for the Charta Oecumenica,

Dear Conference of European Churches (CEC),

Dear Council of European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE),

The international movement We Are Church, founded in Rome in 1996, is committed to the renewal of the Roman Catholic Church on the basis of the Second Vatican Council and the theological spirit developed from it.

Last September we joined your call for the revision of the Charta Oecumenica, a document of fundamental importance for the European Churches, and we sent you two documents containing numerous amendments to the new draft that you made public.

We had been eagerly awaiting the presentation of the revised Charta Oecumenica on 26-27 April 2025 in Vilnius, Lithuania, and we are very sorry that the event had to be postponed due to the death of Pope Francis.

While waiting for you to announce the new date for the presentation, we take the liberty, in sibling spirit, to ask that this be a public event, open to believers of all Churches, and not by invitation only.

We remember well that in 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the Charta Oecumenica, a fourth European Ecumenical Assembly was announced for 2026, the 25th anniversary of the Charta Oecumenica.

We were very surprised that this convocation was no longer mentioned, and that the revised version of the Charta Oecumenica no longer refers to the European Ecumenical Assemblies. Why?

We believe that the three European Ecumenical Assemblies in Basel, Graz and Sibiu have played a very important role in raising ecumenical awareness in our Churches, and we are convinced that more “ecumenism of the people” is needed: an ecumenism too focused on Church leaders is insufficient.

For this reason we ask that the presentation of the new Charta Oecumenica be an ecumenical celebration, to which you warmly invite all members of our European Churches.

And we call for a return to the planning of an upcoming European Ecumenical Assembly: 18 years after the last one, with the challenges and divisions tearing Europe apart, we feel it urgent to reconvene the believers of our Churches, to deepen the faith that unites us and to continue the ecumenical process of justice, peace and integrity of creation as an evangelical vocation at the service of Europe and the world.

A greeting of peace,

Colm Holmes, Chair We Are Church International
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dr Martha Heizer, Vice-Chair We Are Church International
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

International Coordinating team: Valerie Stroud (England & Wales), Mary Morrissey (Ireland), Jean-Pierre Schmitz (France), Ashik Naz Khokhar (Pakistan), Christiane Bascou (France), Martin Schockenhoff (Germany), Kathleen Gibbons Schuck (USA), Gemma Lamarra (Scotland), Elza Ferrario (Italy), Virginia Saldanha (India)