It is a strange experience to see your work cited as a success story by the very institution that declined to support it.
Yet that is precisely how the Australian Women Preach podcast appears in Woman and Man: The Bishops Respond, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s (ACBC) evaluation report on the implementation of the 2000 Social Justice Sunday Statement (SJSS2000). The report presented our podcast as evidence of the bishops’ progress in addressing women’s participation and visibility. The reality is rather different.
Discernment during the Plenary Council years revealed strong support for lay preaching. This is where Australian Women Preach began. It was initiated and sustained by the efforts of a small team of women with the necessary funding of $6000 a year jointly provided by two grassroots women’s organisations, The Grail in Australia and WATAC Inc (Women and the Australian Church).
The purpose of the Australian Women Preach podcast was to provide a platform to showcase the wealth of experience, theological expertise and prophetic witness of Australian women. We are exceptionally proud of the work done and the platform given to voices otherwise denied.
However, the ACBC report overlooks the hard work done with very little institutional Church support. The lack of support across the four years of the podcast’s duration was certainly a contributing factor in the fatigue that led to its cessation.
Australian Women Preach is mentioned several times in the recently released report, and we would like to set the record straight.
First, the report reads: “The research uncovered numerous initiatives taken by dioceses, religious congregations and Church organisations over the past 25 years to extend the outcomes of the SJSS2000 beyond the original commitments … Women’s visibility was promoted through national networks, mentoring programs, awards like the Magdalene Award and innovative platforms such as the Australian Women Preach podcast” (p. vii).
Second, “Spaces are being created for lay people to break open the Word outside the liturgy … The Australian Women Preach podcast, which ceased in March 2025 after 210 episodes, provided a platform for women from all denominational backgrounds to preach. These measures build upon the work of the SJSS2000, which was described as ‘the first step towards a response’” (p.21).
In both cases, the clear impression is given that the Australian Women Preach podcast is an outcome of the SJSS2000, alongside such projects as ‘the Diocese of Sale’s Sunday reflections, and the annual Lent and Advent resources provided by the Archdiocese of Brisbane and the Diocese of Wollongong’ and, as such, received support from the bishops. This is simply not true. While Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv of Parramatta endorsed and promoted the podcast from the outset, only one other bishop acknowledged its existence. In March 2021, every Australian bishop (who had an available email address) was sent a personal letter, setting out the details of the new Australian Women Preach podcast and requesting that they promote it. We received just one reply.
The Australian Women Preach team feel deeply disappointed that the report seems to indicate that the podcast was endorsed by the ACBC and is therefore one of their achievements. The reality is that we were filling a gap that existed precisely because the Australian bishops had failed to promote or actively encourage the implementation of their own Directive for Preaching by Laypersons published in May 2003. Lay preaching, whether by men or women, was not happening in our Sunday liturgies.
While we certainly tried to promote women’s visibility, it was always a struggle, and we failed overall to make ourselves more widely known through diocesan channels. An article on Catholic podcasts in The Bridge did mention us in one sentence, and Bishop Long continued to promote us when he could.
Other than that, we relied on WATAC, Grail and AWP social media, broader reform networks and publications such as The Good Oil to get our message across. We would hazard a guess that the great majority of Catholic women in this country have still never heard of us. We might ask, how many bishops have in fact taken the time to listen to one of our podcast sermons?
There was a desire to keep the subject of lay preaching on the table at the Plenary Council and then, subsequently, at the global Synod on Synodality. We had such hopes.
In one sense, we feel we have achieved little in terms of change. The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a statement on 17 June this year, stating categorically that laypersons may not preach the homily during Mass, even in exceptional circumstances.
However, that goes against the grain of our ACBC’s 2003 Directive for Preaching by Laypersons, where “diocesan bishops may permit lay preaching if it is necessary or useful in certain circumstances” (p.38). Furthermore, as the evaluation report says, “the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia decreed that the ACBC review the 2003 Directive for Preaching by Laypersons guidelines” (p.38), suggesting that there is more work to be done.
Might women who feel called to preach garner some hope from this? Given that our bishops seem to have warmly embraced Australian Women Preach in the evaluation report, can they do the hard work and go further, giving lay people a voice at the ambo? Were this to occur, the Australian Women Preach team would welcome this newfound support of the bishops in promoting women’s preaching and inclusion in the Catholic Church.
This article was contributed by Jenny Close, Patricia Gemmell, Angela Marquis, Tracy McEwan and Colleen Rowe.
About Australian Women Preach
Launched on International Women’s Day in 2021, Australian Women Preach is a joint initiative of The Grail in Australia and WATAC Inc (Women and the Australian Church). Created to model an inclusive, diverse and welcoming Church, the platform elevates the voices of Christian women across denominations, ages and backgrounds as they break open the Gospel with theological insight and contemporary relevance.
Over four years and more than 200 podcast episodes, Australian Women Preach has reached nearly 50,000 listeners and inspired the anthology In Her Voice: Raising Women’s Voices in Preaching the Gospel. Today, the initiative continues to champion the gifts of women preachers and advocate for equal representation in church life. Learn more or listen to the podcast archive at www.australianwomenpreach.com.au
