Discipleship of Equals

Sister Joan Chittister addressed a global audience at Spirit Unbounded: Human Rights in the Emerging Catholic Church, a lay-led synodal assembly held alongside the Vatican Synod on Synodality. Sister Joan's Friday keynote in Rome was titled, "Living the Discipleship of Equals." Sister Joan and Dr. Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland, also had a public conversation on Saturday, titled "The Women of Faith Keep Going." Finally, Sister Joan led the closing of the conference with Shawna Bluestar Newcomb. 

"The world into which Jesus was born called the blind and diseased sinful, a female child useless, a menstruating woman unclean, and so all of them marginal to the system, condemned to the fringes of life, barred from the heart of the temple," Sister Joan said in her presentation. "But Jesus takes each of them to himself, despite the laws, regardless of the culture, notwithstanding the disapproval of the spiritual notables of the area and fills them with himself and sends them as himself out to the highways and byways of the entire world. To be disciples of Jesus means that we must do the same. Discipleship infers—requires—no less than the confirming, ordaining, love of Jesus for everyone, everywhere."

Recordings can still be purchased through Spirit Unbounded's website, here.