Bronwen McShea’s recent book La Duchesse chronicles the life of Marie de Vignerot, the niece, protégé and heiress of Cardinal Richelieu.

The synod on synodality has prompted a battle over grand visions for the church. Meanwhile, Catholic parishes are failing to meet the day-to-day spiritual needs of people in the pews.

The more women learn about their bodies and experience the direct impact of hormonal contraception, the more this growing minority looks for alternatives.

Perhaps when we ask if women can be ordained, we are asking the wrong question.

We can love without condoning, and we can communicate difficult teachings without wounding.

We have to advance the conversation beyond one that limits women to emulating male models but instead understands women and men in relation to one another.

As a woman in leadership in the church, I think we are having the wrong conversation when we focus so narrowly on the question of women deacons that we fail to see the ways Catholic women can—and already do—lead.