To mark International Women’s Day 2026, we warmly invite you to a presentation on Women and Leadership in the Church.
On Monday 9 March 2026 at 1.00pm (NZ time), we are honoured to host Dr Rocío Figueroa, a respected theologian and member of the Mercy Hospice Board, for a webinar that speaks directly into the life of the Church today.
In 2018, the Final Document of the Synod on Youth called for the Church to fully recognise women’s contributions and ensure their greater participation in leadership and decision-making, naming this as essential to a synodal Church grounded in equality, collaboration, and mutual respect. It acknowledged that this would require:
“…a courageous change of culture and a change in daily pastoral practice.”
That call was reaffirmed in the 2024 Final Document on the Synod on Synodality, which emphasised women’s fuller participation in leadership and decision-making in line with canon law, while continuing discernment on women in the diaconate.
On International Women’s Day 2026, the question before us is no longer whether women belong in leadership, but what this looks like now, in governance, mission, and daily practice.
Dr Figueroa’s webinar, Women and Leadership in the Church, echoes the Synod’s clear affirmation:
“There is no reason or impediment to prevent women from assuming leadership roles in the Church.”
Including women’s voices at the table, alongside the voices of others, supports more collaborative leadership, greater transparency in decision-making, and a clearer focus on mission and service.
We invite trustees, directors, leaders, staff, and all those interested in this topic, within and beyond Mercy to join us.
Dr Rocío Figueroa Alvear is a Peruvian Catholic theologian and Lecturer in Systematic Theology at the Catholic Theological College in Auckland.
She holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Her current research focuses on theological and pastoral responses to Church sexual and spiritual abuse.
