• We believe in God for whom love is truly the highest priority, who expects the Church to be a community of care and mutual concern, brothers and sisters among whom leaders are servants and to whom power means comfort and healing.
  
• We believe in God who cherishes every part of our personality, our intelligence and spiritual gifts, but also our bodies, our sexuality, our longing for relationships, warmth and touch.
  
• We believe in God who has created all human beings to be sons and daughters, who calls both men and women equally to leadership and ministry in the Kingdom of Love.
  
• We believe in God who does not exact cruel sacrifices from us, but heroic deeds of love as Jesus showed us, deeds of generosity, a God who wants us to respect and love ourselves while giving and sharing of our best for the sake of others.
  
• We believe in God who expects us to be creative and free, who wants us to express our opinions honestly, to fight with all our heart and mind for truth and justice rather than blindly obey commands, to trustingly challenge those in authority when they make mistakes.

We are convinced that God revealed Good News, a breathtaking inspiration that gives meaning to our lives, an ideal against which we measure ourselves and our community of faith, a source of hope that makes us happy and proud to be followers of Christ.

The Catholic Church still does not recognise the full equality in Christ that should be enjoyed by women (Galatians 3,28).

A Catholic woman is, in fact, disqualified from dealing with the sacred. She may be a consumer of it but has only access to it through men. She is not deemed capable of being the life-giving image of Christ at the eucharist. It is our duty as women to draw attention to this anomaly which is surely against Jesus’ own intentions.

I love the Church as do all of us in our campaign. But Church leaders can make, and have made, mistakes. Cultural prejudice has clouded Christian thinking before. It does so now with regard to women.

It is high time for us women to wake up and assess the state of our home, our Church, to get the feather dusters out, wipe the shelves with their grimy old volumes and open the windows to let fresh air in. It is time for us women to prove ourselves good housekeepers. After all, is this not the role traditionally allotted to us? All hope is not lost! But we have to be firm, to be assertive, dare to speak up, dare to say what we honestly believe. As loyal Catholics we have to keep the discussion open.

For all these reasons I support the campaign's aims and projects, and I appeal to you to offer your support as well - in any way you can! It cannot function without your financial support. And, please, do not forget the future. Give our work security by leaving us a legacy.

Baroness Holvoet Bourguignon

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