In 1988, Marie Sheehan and Dorothy Conceison founded the Massachusetts Women Church with the goal of eliminating sexism within the Catholic Church. As a member of the Women Church Convergence, the Massachusetts Women Church worked to support the ordination of women through annual conferences, awareness campaigns, and respectful witnessings at male ordination ceremonies. The organization consisted of ten to twelve active core group members who met once a month to plan activities and conferences that promoted the eradication of sexism and church hierarchy. They also had a quarterly newspaper with a mailing list of over a thousand people in the New England area. Their annual conferences drew over 200 people on average, and often featured nationally known feminist theologians, such as Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joan Chittister, and Theresa Kane. Additionally, the Massachusetts Women Church formed a charitable component of their group called the Lost Coin Womens Fund. The fund provided scholarships to low income women looking to improve their lives through education. In 2007, after almost twenty years of activity, the Massachusetts Women Church decided to formally discontinue their work.
From the description of Massachusetts Women-Church Convergence records 1987-2008. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 624618648
