If women are going to take on leadership roles in the Church, they have to engage in dialogue with other churches and faiths, says Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship participant, Nicola Frew.
Mother of three and project assistant at the Emmanuel Centre, Perth, Ms Frew was selected along with prison chaplain and program officer at Reconciliation WA, Vicky Burrows, to take part in the current Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship.
These women are part of a larger group made up of 14 women from across Australia taking part in the fellowship. They are the fifth group of participants since the commencement of the fellowship in 2006.
The two-year fellowship gives women the opportunity to study for an online graduate certificate in theology as well as take part in leadership programs and in interfaith and ecumenical dialogue.
In an interview with Archdiocese of Perth Communications & Media Office journalist Marco Ceccarelli, Ms Burrows said that she has always felt a calling towards bridging and building relationships between people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.
“Interfaith dialogue is pertinent to the type of Australia that we want. If we, as Catholics, want to be relevant in people’s lives, we have to be visible, meet people where they are and not be seen as holding ourselves in a corner. It is important for the Church to be present within the many diverse Australian faiths and cultures,” Ms Burrows said.
The academic component of the fellowship is run through the Broken Bay Institute and the University of Newcastle. The first year of the fellowship grounds the participants within Christian theology in order to give them sufficient knowledge of their own faith, while the second year looks at other religions and spiritual traditions in order to find ways of engagement. A residential weekend takes place five times a year when the participants gather in Sydney to receive training and refine their leadership skills.
Reflecting on what brought her to engage with the fellowship, Ms Frew looked back at her past to understand how it has influenced her decisions today.
“Having grown up as a person of colour in London, which is a predominantly white society, I have lived with a sense of difference. I have always held on to that and the resonance for me today is the situation of refugees in Australia,” she said.
“There has to be a way to bridge these gaps. As representatives of the major Christian faith, we can be a cause for change in terms of the violence that is happening in the world. This fellowship gives me the grounding and strong understanding needed to address those issues that need attention,” Ms Frew added.
Both women agreed that ‘common ground’ needs to be found among the different world faiths in order to collaborate on the pressing issues of our times. This, they said, does not need to come at the expense of one’s own beliefs.
“It is important that we all have our story, show how God has worked in our lives and approach it from a humble base,” said Ms Burrows.
“It’s not about drawing lines in the sand,” added Ms Frew, who also believes that interfaith dialogue has nothing to do with leaving one’s beliefs behind.
“You learn in your journey, look back and say ‘I can see more of the bigger picture now’. The more you learn, the more grounded you become.”
Ms Burrows and Ms Frew have recently started the academic component of the fellowship and will be attending their second Sydney-based weekend retreat in August.
The Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship is organised by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference through the Office for the Participation of Women and is funded through the support of religious congregations.
If you are interested in sponsoring a young Catholic woman for leadership, please email fellowship coordinator Andrea Dean at fellowship.opw@catholic.org.au.