Call to Action is one of the major Catholic reform groups in the US.  As “Catholics working together for Justice and Equality,” their motto for their November 6, 2009 national conference is “Everyone at the Table: Rejoicing as the People of God.”  The three day convention will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and here is a video announcement from the Executive Director, Jim Fitzgerald:

 

One of the keynote speakers will be Maryknoll Priest, Roy Bourgeois, an outspoken advocate for Women’s ordination.  Father Bourgeois has been the subject of several recent blogposts that have come across my desk.  Pulitzer Prize winning newspaperman Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe writes in his Articles of Faith blog,

I was struck by his fiery certainty. Rather than backing down, or quieting down, he is becoming more forceful. "I have no choice,” he told me. "I have a deep love for my church and my ministry, but at the same time, I know an injustice when I see it.”

Earlier this month, Bourgeois was guest speaker at the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform event here in the Twin Cities, which was discussed at The Progressive Catholic Voice blog.  The same blog has a more recent entry on the Ordination of Women in Minneapolis.

The local Roman Catholic diocese of St Paul and Minneapolis “lovingly cautions” against such activities:

The Archdiocese wishes it to be known that the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, the 2010 synod, and individuals endorsing the same, are not agents or entities of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis or the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, the Archdiocese wishes to lovingly caution those members of the faithful participating in the ‘work/study groups’ and intending to attend the synod of the potential that the issues on which CCCR will seek reform are magisterial teachings of the Church, and are therefore to be believed by divine and catholic faith. The Archdiocese also wishes to remind the faithful of its need to shun any contrary doctrines, and instead to embrace and retain, to safeguard reverently and expound faithfully, the doctrine of faith and morals proposed definitively by the magisterium of the Church.

Love that smothers.