The Women's Ordination Conference is the oldest and largest national organization that works to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops into the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1975, it primarily promotes an agenda with the objective of ordaining women within the Catholic Church. The idea for the Conference came in 1974, when Mary B. Lynch asked the people on her Christmas list if it was time to publicly ask "Should Catholic women be priests?" [1] 31 women and one man answered yes, and thus a taskforce was formed and a national meeting was planned. This first meeting was held in Detroit, Michigan, on Thanksgiving weekend of 1975, with nearly 2,000 people in attendance. [2]
The WOC's sister organization, Roman Catholic Womenpriests, has incurred an automatic excommunication by decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Leaders of the WOC that have attempted female ordination or who have worked alongside RCW also join them in a state of latae sententiae excommunication.