About whimm
Mission
whimm's mission is to make visible women's call to Catholic ministry through monthly home Masses with women priests.
Vision
whimm’s vision is to respond with loving creativity to the Catholic Church’s discrimination against women by breaking an unjust rule and regularly celebrating Mass with ordained Roman Catholic women priests, part of a renewed and non-clerical priesthood, knowing that in this way we are bringing about the kin-dom of God.
Our Story
Winter 2019
First home mass. A group of 20 Washington, DC-area friends and neighbors gathered in a home in Tenleytown to celebrate mass with a Roman Catholic woman priest. Word spread and, with help from Maryland’s Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community, the group organized two more masses, in March and April, in other homes in Tenleytown, DC.
2019
With Vocations Sunday coinciding with Mother’s Day, whimm organized something bigger: our first public mass in a park, with two women priests concelebrating–Rev. Barbara Beadles, RCWP, and Rev. Susan Schessler, RCWP. We set up two tents and 70 of us gathered on a drizzly afternoon on Massachusetts Ave. NW near the Vatican Embassy for Mass on Mass en masse, followed by a prayerful walk and blessing outside the Papal Nuncio.
2019-2020
Growing the movement. We continued holding home masses in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and our community grew to hundreds of DC-area current and former Catholics. We held a second public Mass on Mass in October 2019, our first annual one to honor Indigenous People’s Day.
Spring 2020
Moving online. During the pandemic, we began meeting online, holding our first Zoom liturgy in May, inviting lay reflections and consecrating our bread and wine as a community. Who could have imagined that so many Catholics would be celebrating mass remotely from their own homes?
Fall 2020
Mass in Masks. Four of us gathered in person for the first time in six months to broadcast Mass on Mass from the park, spreading out under a big tent in the pouring rain, masked, sanitized, and responsibly sharing eucharist. Featuring SongRise vocalist Mackenzie Howard.
2021
Continuing with monthly mostly online masses, in 2021 we held Mass on Mass at the park in May, and a second one in October in honor of Indigenous People’s Day. In 2022, we celebrated Mass on Mass in April for Palm Sunday and again in May for Vocations Sunday.
2022
In partnership with Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), we organized River of Justice, a global online event to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Danube 7. Featuring five Roman Catholic women priests: Bishop Patiricia Fresen (1940-2024), Rev. Dianne Willman, Rev. Olga Lucia Alvarez-Benjumea, Rev. Dr. Vikki Marie, and Rev Jackie Clarys. We began gathering in homes and backyards again.
2023
In addition to our regular masses, in June we held an online forum called Faith of Our Fathers: How Non-ordination of Women Impacts Men and Boys, featuring Ray Suarez, whose daughter is an Episcopal priest, Father Anne, Roman Catholic woman priest, and whimm member/webmaster and new dad Bill Garate.
2024
In February we held our 5th Anniversary (Tailgate) Tea, gathering online before the Superbowl to get the tea on Tailgating at the Synod on Synodality. In March we celebrated our milestone 50th Mass with Rev. Barbara Beadles at a home in Georgetown. In May we marked our 5-year anniversary of Mass on Mass with great fanfare including purple sugar cookies, and unveiled our Honk for Women Priests sign!
2025
Our joyful work continues as more and more DC-area Catholics gather to witness women priests celebrating home Masses. We launched a year of Mary Magdalene prayer gatherings, supported Catholic Women Strike with WOC, and joined with our friends at Dignity Washington for Mass at St. Margaret’s in Dupont Circle.
2026
Many members of our whimm community attended the herstoric 50th Anniversary Women’s Ordination Conference in Detroit, Michigan, celebrating Pentecost together with hundreds of others from around the world committed to bringing about this critical change in the Catholic Church. We returned renewed and inspired by the legacy we continue to carry forward, with joy at the center of our ministry.
Our Leadership
The Donut.
All are invited to join whimm’s leadership circle, the Donut. We meet monthly on Zoom to plan our liturgies and other programs, help administer the growing organization, and support and celebrate one another and our community in this sometimes challenging work.
Our Inspiration
Our work is founded in the writings and teachings of Anne E. Patrick, SNJM (1941-2016), moral theologian and professor of religion and women’s studies at Carleton College.
Witnessing and being a part of these graced experiences is something she called “prophetic obedience”— going towards the higher calling of conscience, towards the greater good, towards inclusive and divine justice and the dignity of all God’s creation, breaking an unjust rule. This is a way to live into our faith, and by example, lead the church there. The goal is not to just bemoan or dismantle what is broken, but to also build something better, what Patrick calls the virtue of creative responsibility. “Behold, I am making something new!” Isaiah 43:19