THE
P RTAL
November 2016
Page 18
Catholic Women
of the Year Awards
Dr Gill James and Ronald Crane witness the award ceremony
and saw two women associated with the Ordinariate honoured
S
ome sections of the press, both Catholic and secular, are prone to denigrate the Catholic Church
for its attitude to, and treatment of, women. Now one cannot put the Ordinariate into that category. So,
the Portal was delighted to receive an invitation to the forty eighth annual Catholic Woman of the Year
awards. We responded in a positive way, and not just because it was held at a swank central London hotel
with a luncheon thrown in.
This year there were four
recipients of the award. Dr
Olive Duddy, senior tutor for
the Natural Family Planning
Teachers
Association;
Dr
Caroline Farey, who taught most
of the first wave of CofE priests
to join the Ordinariate; Sister
Jane Louise of the Ordinariate
and working at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham
For those of us in the Personal Ordinariate of Our
– known to us all; and Catherine MacMillan, the writer Lady of Walsingham it was specially gratifying to have
and musician,
two of the four named, associated with
us. Dr Farey is a wonderful tutor and
We congratulate them all, and the
those of us lucky enough to have been
awards ceremony itself was a splendid
tutored by her are fortunate indeed.
and inspiring occasion. In addition to
the awards, we were addressed by Fr
Sr Jane Louise is someone Ronald has
Dominic Allain from the Charity Grief
known for more years than he or she (!),
to Grace. He spoke movingly about the
cares to remember. Having taken the
trauma of abuse. Each year CWOY
brave decision to join the Ordinariate,
supports a charity, and Fr Dominic’s
she and the late lamented Sr Wendy
had been chosen this year.
Renate appear to have spent time here,
there and everywhere until they finally
The Keynote Speaker was the author
settled in Walsingham as Sisters of the
Clare Asquith. She took as her theme
Reconciliation. Sr Wendy’s untimely
Magdalen Montague and Shakespeare’s Sr Jane Louise
and sudden death was a blow to us all,
treatment of her in a Winter’s Tale.
but especially for Sr Jane Louise