Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research

24/03/2026

Making the Catholic news today: our statement - as a member of WOW - on the first woman to hold the most senior role in the Anglican Communion:

'“We join with Christians everywhere in delighting at this watershed moment after centuries of discrimination against women whose vocations to leadership were denied to placate those who prioritised patriarchal hierarchy over the teachings of Jesus. We lament the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has become a bastion of bigotry where those opposed to women’s ordination can seek refuge.'

Campaigners for women priests and deacons in the Catholic Church extended their “warmest congratulations” to Dame Sarah Mullally as she prepares to be

27/12/2025

We were asked to contribute to this article (in Playgirl Magazine!) on the Vatican's issue with women - proof that concern about prejudice and it's wide reaching global consequences is now mainstream news:

“When the hierarchy admits that women are equal to men, it would be a wonderful sign to the world that sexism is a sin and must now be dismantled. Because, the consequences of an all-male celibate leadership having such huge control over teaching and healthcare without a single women influencing decision making or policy are catastrophic. This is the most urgent issue that the world should be holding the Vatican to account for.”

Archbishop-designate of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, the schism in the Anglican communion and the cultural bias

17/12/2025

In this, our final publication of 2025, we expose the litany of lies around the Vatican's claim to have studied the question of women deacons:

''This is evidence that Catholics everywhere — even Synodal participants themselves — have been kept in the dark. Below is a forensic examination of all the machinations to deceive and deny women’s role in the church and how the Vatican has lied about their decision-making process. ''

You’ve been duped – exposing Vatican deceptions about the decision on women deacons Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri – 17 December 2025 The Synodal process has been hijacked. One of the main discussion points throughout the Synod was the urgent need to increase women’s access to church ministries...

09/12/2025

Our Director of Research makes the closing argument in today's Tablet review of reactions to the Vatincan's decision on women deacons:

Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research has said, “the No from the Commission highlights the lack of good faith from the Vatican”.
The entire process, he said, particularly the selection of members of the study commission and study group, has been carried out “without transparency”, to ensure the selection of ‘yes-men’ and ‘yes-women’.
He criticised the outcome as “deeply wrong both historically and theologically” and called for the Commission to publish all the materials it relied on.

Responding to the seven-page synthesis document, Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery said the outcome had “the same feel” as Humanae Vitae in 1968 which declared

27/11/2025

The Wijngaards Institute featured in the New York Times today in a profile of Pope Leo as he embarks on his first foreign travel as pontiff.

"I am feeling quite positive about this pope, honestly, but I do think he’s quite a conflicted man,” said Miriam Duignan, the executive director of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research in Cambridge, England. She noted that Leo had chosen a woman as a spiritual director when he was a seminarian, and talked openly about a congregation of nuns in Peru who conduct baptisms and marriages.

But, “his job is to keep unity within the hierarchical leadership in the church today and that means not upsetting the men in power.”

The pontiff begins a trip to Turkey and Lebanon on Thursday — the first foreign voyage of his papacy, and his biggest test yet.

19/09/2025

Dr Ally Kateusz is Senior Research Associate with the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. In this academic analysis of changing images and contradictory accounts of how many sisters were present at the raising of Lazarus, we are invited to question:

'Did the addition of Martha to texts and iconography correlate with a change in women’s agency and authority in the broader culture? The trajectory of female postures—from one woman standing tall with Jesus, to kneeling at his feet, to two women prostrate with a crowd of men towering over them—is shocking. This trajectory appears to reflect changing cultural perspectives regarding the proper place of women in Christian society as held by artists, their patrons, their churches, or communities. Artists mapped these social views onto the bodies of biblical women, and this art performed as a model for how actual women should comport themselves.'

The question of how many sisters were portrayed with Jesus at the Raising of Lazarus in early Christian art has not previously been explored, and interestingly, the hypothesis that Martha was added later aligns with the number of sisters portrayed in early art of the Raising of Lazarus.

23/07/2025

Writing in this week's edition of Flashes of Insight, our Executive Director, Miriam Duignan reflects on the Vatican's accusation of clericalism against women who currently cannot be clerics!

"The hierarchy’s strategy of fearmongering—that women will be adding to the curse of clericalism—is a masterclass in deception and distraction.
Instead of admitting that they can no longer claim any theological justification for the ban on women priests, they are using this narrative as a smoke screen to perpetuate prejudice and fear about women in positions of authority."

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church—the clerical caste—is increasingly justifying the exclusion of women from ministry, claiming that ordination risks “clericalising women.”

15/07/2025

Our latest contribution; this time for The Progressive Magazine on the consequences of challenging the Vatican's exclusion of women:

"Miriam Duignan, executive director of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, knows this fight well. Twice arrested by the Italian police for her activism, she most recently protested in Rome in support of women’s ordination, moments before the beginning of the papal conclave that would select Pope Leo XIV. She argues that the current structure of the Catholic Church is not only symbolically misogynistic, but also deprives women of a voice in an institution that has global influence."

A global movement of women becoming priests shows no signs of stopping, despite the steep consequences.

24/06/2025

"Miriam Duignan executive director of the Wijngaards Institute, a research institute founded by the late Dutch priest and former Vicar General of the Mill Hill missionary order, Dr John Wijngaards, who resigned from the active priestly ministry in 1998 in protest at the St John Paul II’s ban on women priests, said Dr Wijngaards was brave and outspoken.
Those calling for greater inclusion of women in the church face serious pushback, she said.
“I’ve been arrested multiple times in Rome simply for holding signs or standing in Vatican spaces.”

During the recent conclave, plainclothes officers tracked and detained her and others and removed them from St Peter’s Square and banned them from Vatican property – “even though we had a permit” and had been in the Square to see the outcome of the first round of voting at the conclave.

“The Vatican’s reaction proves the power of protest. They see us as a threat because we’re exposing the institutional misogyny at the heart of the Church. But our courage also makes space for others to speak up.”

Stressing that protest works, she said it is seen as dangerous “because we are drawing attention to the lies that sustain the ban on women priests. We are drawing attention to the fact that men are quite comfortably running the Church without including half of the church in their decision-making and management of the Church."

19/06/2025

'But word is already out that the world is crying out for women deacons and the bishops themselves have told us so.'

Dr Luca Badini , Director of Research for the Institute, investigated global Synodal submissions from the Amazon to the Philippines and summarises the most striking findings for the brand new Catholic Publication - Flashes of Insight.

Study Group 5, established in early 2024 by Pope Francis to examine the issue of women deacons, is scheduled to report out by the end of June 2025.