The encounter with Francis as a moment of conversion. 

All WUCWO women are summoned to a private audience with Pope Francis on 13 May 2023; this event will be the threshold of our General Assembly in Assisi.

In this month of October, I entrust each one of you, women of our organisations, to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (whom we celebrate on the 1st of this month) to guide our journey of conversion towards WUCWO with a synodal style that will be manifested in the audience with the Pope and in the Assembly 2023.

Dear friends,

This month I would like to invite you to join me in a thanksgiving to God for everything received at WUCWO. Three verbs come spontaneously to me: to listen, to share and to grow. Let me share with you just some of the good news I have recently collected and in some cases experienced, region by region.

On the 7th anniversary of the promulgation of the encyclical Laudato Si’ by the Holy Father Pope Francis, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saskatoon has launched a Laudato Si’ Reflection Series through its Human and Environmental Development Program.

Dear friends,

“The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus” (EG 1). This is how I imagine our meeting will be like at the next General Assembly in Assisi, from 14 to 20 May 2023, preceded on 13 May by an audience with Pope Francis in Rome, to which all the women of WUCWO are invited. We are very grateful to the Holy Father!

On Sunday, July 24, 2022, the Second World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will be celebrated throughout the universal Church. The theme chosen by the Holy Father for the occasion is "In old age they will still bear fruit" (Psalm 92:15) and intends to emphasize how grandparents and the elderly are a value and a gift both for society and for ecclesial communities.

WUCWO's participation at the Group of International NGOs to FAO in Rome.

On the 13th of July 2022, Maria Lía Zervino, Servidora,  President General of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations (WUCWO) was appointed, by Pope Francis, to the Dicastery for Bishops together with other two women.

For the first time, three women will serve, by the will of the Pope, in the process of identifying and electing the new diocesan bishops.

Dear friends,

“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you”, this is how the story of the Last Supper begins and hence the title of the recent papal document, Desiderio desideravi, which Pope Francis has chosen to give us a new gift. It is a kind of meditation on the Liturgy, so that we may recover the “wonder” in the face of mystery and allow ourselves to be penetrated by the One who unites Truth and Beauty in Himself. “Beauty, just like truth, always engenders wonder, and when these are referred to the mystery of God, they lead to adoration” (DD 25).

© Photo : Vatican Media

On 11 June 2022, all the members of the WUCWO Executive Committee had the extraordinary opportunity to meet the Holy Father during a private audience. He welcomed happily the news of the creation of the World Women’s Observatory, which has already succeeded in listening to and giving visibility to women in Latin America and the Caribbean and is starting its work in Africa.

Called and calling to holiness.

Dear friends,

“A saint is a masterpiece of God”, used to say my father and master of spiritual life, the Servant of God Luis María Etcheverry Boneo, founder of the Servidoras. It is by God’s Spirit working in us and with us that we can respond to the call to holiness and, in turn, call others to walk together towards that goal (4th resolution of the Dakar General Assembly, 2018).