I acknowledge that researching this book was both a challenge and a (benefit/ blessing/joy). A lifelong Catholic who served in the priesthood for 28 years, I believed I would learn nothing new about the role of women in the Church. I thought that the conflict between the Church’s male hierarchy and women religious was something that began less than 50 years ago…WRONG. I also thought that none of the leadership positions in the international church organizations were headed by a woman…WRONG. The hostility between the male hierarchy and women religious in the Church actually began a century before Vatican Council II (1962-1965). On the issue of women’s leadership in the Church, Wall-Street Journal reporter John J. Fialka, author of Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America, tells their story and passionately analyzes their remarkable contributions to education, healthcare, social reform, civil rights, and their patient but determined persistence of a meaningful role in the Church. Today, with Catholic women religious and Catholic lay women becoming leaders of international Church organizations, there is a renewed promise for women sharing equal authority with men in the future Church. As reported in an earlier chapter, Sister Donna Markham, OP, Ph.D., was appointed the first female president and CEO of Catholic Charities U.S.A. This Dominican sister supervised a staff of 70,000 employees and administered social services to 10 million people at a time when, according to Crux Magazine, Pope Francis was pushing to give women more prominent roles in the Catholic Church.