Message from Deborah Rose-Milavec

(Deborah and Aaron Rose-Milavec
have set up a ‘daughter’ office for our campaign in the USA)

I would like to share a little of my story. As a child, I possessed a simple unquestioning love for my Church. I often attended daily mass and loved to be with our priest Fr. Joseph.

As a teenager, I had my first crisis of faith. I became aware that the people who prayed in church on Sundays went out and cheated their neighbours on Monday.

At twenty-eight, having put my four daughters to bed, I experienced God’s presence so deeply I thought my heart would explode with joy and I knew God was real.

I discovered, with great joy, the social justice teachings of the Church. I also learned that the Church had begun a dialogue about the role of women in the Church and how that discussion had been shut down by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I became angry, but I learned to use that energy constructively to speak out.

One Sunday our parish priest preached to the men in the congregation about vocations to the priesthood. I spoke to the priest after Mass and asked how I could teach my children to expect full equality and dignity in the world and not to expect it from my Church?

We must continue to listen to the call of the Holy Spirit to work for change.

Deborah Rose-Milavec