Why are women still fighting for equal leadership within some of the largest Christian denominations?
In Episode 058 of Your Radical Truth, Deacon Margaret Mary O’Connor welcomes Father Anne back for a candid and provocative conversation about women’s ordination, biblical interpretation, religious authority, politics, and the traditions that continue to influence the role of women within Christianity.
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Father Anne was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 2021 through a reform movement. Because the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the ordination of women, she was excommunicated. Today, she continues her work for ordination justice while pursuing her desire to serve as a parish priest in the Roman Catholic Church.
Women’s Ordination Is Not Just a Catholic Issue
While the Catholic Church is central to the discussion, Margaret Mary and Father Anne make it clear that questions about women and religious leadership extend far beyond Catholicism. The episode looks at debates within the Southern Baptist Convention and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including ongoing disagreements about whether women should serve as pastors and participate equally in Church leadership.
At the heart of the conversation is a fundamental question: If God calls a woman to ministry, who has the authority to tell her that call is not valid? Father Anne makes an important distinction. No one has an automatic right to become a priest, but everyone should have the right to discern whether they have been called.
Beth Moore, the Southern Baptist Convention and Speaking Out
The conversation also examines the experience of prominent Bible teacher Beth Moore, who left the Southern Baptist Convention following years of tension. Margaret Mary discusses Moore’s advocacy for victims of sexual abuse and her criticism of evangelical support for Donald Trump.
Moore’s experience opens a larger conversation about what can happen when women within religious communities challenge powerful institutions, question established authority, and speak publicly about abuse, gender inequality, and political alliances.
The GOP, Christianity and Political Power
Father Anne takes the conversation directly into the relationship between conservative Christianity and the Republican Party in the United States. She shares her perspective on how religion and politics have become deeply intertwined, particularly around traditional ideas about masculinity, gender roles, authority, and power.
The discussion challenges listeners to consider how religious beliefs about gender can extend beyond the walls of churches and influence politics, institutions, and society.
Is God Exclusively Male?
Another fascinating part of the episode examines the way Christians have been taught to imagine God. Margaret Mary and Father Anne explore feminine imagery for God found throughout Scripture and Christian history, including descriptions associated with motherhood, childbirth, nurturing, and protection.
Father Anne points out that Scripture actually offers an extraordinary range of images for God, including fire, wind, living water, shepherd, gardener, mother, and father. Rather than limiting God to a single gender or image, these metaphors may offer believers a much broader understanding of the divine.
Rethinking Faith, Gender and Authority
Episode 058 ultimately asks listeners to examine some difficult questions. Are long-held beliefs about women, leadership, and God truly rooted in the divine? Or have centuries of culture, patriarchy, politics, and institutional tradition influenced the way Christians have been taught to understand them?
This is a challenging conversation about faith, equality, vocation, political power, and what needs to change for women to participate fully in the future of the Church.
About Father Anne
Father Anne is the author of The Shepherd Within: Following God’s Incarnational Initiative to Fullness of Life Beyond Institutional Control, a work that invites readers to rediscover God’s living presence not as distant or hierarchical, but moving through human conscience, relationship, and justice.
She was ordained on October 16, 2021, in Albuquerque, New Mexico through the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and now serves asan independent Roman Catholic priest. Her priesthood is rooted in a profound love for the Society of Jesus and Ignatian spirituality, formed over twelve years of ministry alongside Jesuits.
Father Anne earned a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and has served in multiple Jesuit parishes. In
addition to her theological formation, she holds a master’s degree in Rhetoric and Writing Studies from San Diego State University and brings more than twenty-five years of experience in strategic communications.
Deeply grounded in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Father Anne is especially drawn to the work of discernment and to exploring what the next era of the Church may become. While many have understandably walked away from the Roman Catholic Church, she continues to respond to the call of the Holy Spirit, collaborating with God in the ongoing work of equality, truth, and transformation within one of the most powerful institutions in the world.
About Deacon Margaret Mary O’Connor
Deacon Margaret Mary O’Connor, a member of the Catholic laity, once believed she understood her Church and its teachings. Everything changed the day she uncovered a centuries old scandal of lies and institutional cover up surrounding the history of women in ordained ministry. Realizing that her own Church had hidden the truth about women priests, women deacons, and even women bishops, she felt a deep and unforgettable sense of betrayal.
That moment became the catalyst for her mission. Margaret Mary now travels what she calls the Highway of Radical Truth, exposing the layers of deception that
have kept millions of Catholics unaware of the prominent roles women held in early Church history. Her work challenges long held assumptions, confronts the complicity of the hierarchy, and calls Catholics to learn the real history for themselves.
For Margaret Mary, every Catholic deserves the truth. She believes transparency is not optional, especially when the suppression of women’s vocations continues to harm the Church today. Her research shines a spotlight on hidden historical records that may even hold answers to the modern priest shortage.
Often described as a “Modern Day David,” Margaret Mary is relentless in her commitment to revealing what has been intentionally concealed. Through her well researched writings, public advocacy, and ministry within the Celtic Christian Church, she brings these buried truths to light.
She is the author of Scandal in the Shadows and Journey of a Celiac’s Soul, and remains a force for honesty, courage, and reform within the broader Catholic conversation.
