Anna Robertson
Q: While at CSTM, what was a formative experience you had here, whether in the classroom or with the larger CSTM community?
A: "One of the most formative parts of my time at CSTM was the summer I spent in the Spiritual Care Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I actually started off as an MDiv, and I completed a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) to fulfill my supervised ministry requirement. It was immensely challenging, but just as rewarding. In particular, I appreciated the chance to work alongside students from other faith traditions. I’ve spent most of my life in a Catholic bubble, and I found myself reflecting again this past October on the significance of my interfaith CPE experience, during the ecumenical prayer vigil that opened the Sixteenth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome. I was in Rome for the entire month of the synod, and during that time someone close to the synod told me that, at the close of this synod in 2024, we should feel incomplete, because the synod is fundamentally for all the baptized—not just Catholics—and we still have a lot of work to do on engaging Catholics, let alone non-Catholic Christians. In retrospect, if I could do anything differently at CSTM, I would pay more attention to the many opportunities for ecumenical and interfaith engagement."
Q: While earning your M.T.S., did you know you wanted to do work like you are currently doing with Discerning Deacons? Can you tell us a little bit about your discernment process and career journey?
A: “I absolutely would not have predicted my career trajectory while a student at CSTM! Discerning Deacons wasn’t founded until 2021, several years after I graduated, and, as someone who has never felt personally called to ordained ministry, I wouldn’t have predicted I’d be working on the topic of women deacons. My first job out of CSTM was as Campus Minister for Retreats at Seattle University. My work there was rich and meaningful, but I found myself longing to find work that was more explicitly focused on the Church’s social mission. This led to me spending a year and a half working for climate justice in the U.S. Catholic Church at Catholic Climate Covenant, where I began to develop my skills as a community organizer. Honestly, I joined Discerning Deacons for the team! I left every interaction with Discerning Deacons with the distinct feeling that the Spirit was afoot there, was up to something new in what was emerging from this team of women organizing at the edge of the inside of the institutional church, and I wanted in on it! Once I was on the team, I began to deepen my understanding of diakonia and synodality and to grow by leaps and bounds as an organizer. In this work, I come right up alongside the cutting edge of change in our Church—for example, spending all of last October in Rome attending public synod events, encountering synod delegates, and connecting the Discerning Deacons community back home with what was unfolding there—and I love it. In an institution that can feel impervious to change, being this close helps me recognize all the small but important ways that change is happening, and working on a team of organizers helps me embrace my own co-responsibility and unleash that of others as agents of change."
Q: As you are being honored with the inaugural Young Alumni Leadership in Ministry Award, what is a piece of advice you have for current CSTM students, particularly those who will be graduating soon?
A: "I’ve learned a lot from the discipline of community organizing. (1) Be relational—invest the time in learning about a person’s hopes, dreams, goals, and values, ideally before you ask them to do anything for you—and then (2) make good propositions that are connected to those things you’ve learned! I’m currently serving as vice president for a local chapter of an organization I volunteer with and was meeting with some higher-ups who joked, somewhat threateningly, that it was only a matter of time before I would end up president, as though by saying yes to one thing I’d been cornered into doing more. This didn’t make me at all excited about the prospect of stepping into greater leadership! We need to connect our invitations to people to their vision for themselves—and then we can move mountains together! (3) Conflict is natural, and it can be generative. It brings buried tensions into the light and creates new opportunities to organize around them. (Now, that’s not to say I’ve conquered my conflict aversion…) (4) Power is not something we should shun. It’s how change happens, and, on its own, it’s neutral. Too often it’s those who are marginalized in some way who are taught to disavow power, which can re-entrench their marginality. We can look to Jesus as a model of how to build power (collectively) and how to wield it (generatively, strategically, for good). "
Q: What has been the most life-giving part of your ministry experience?
A: “Since I took this job in August 2022, I have known that I would be spending October 2023 (and, God willing, October 2024) in Rome accompanying the global synod assemblies there. Late last summer, my colleague Casey suggested I put out some feelers with some other young adults to see if anyone wanted to join me in Rome—I was planning to arrive in time for Together, a gathering for young adults hosted by the Taizé community that culminated in the ecumenical prayer vigil that was among the official opening festivities of the synod. I wasn’t particularly optimistic that I’d find anyone to join me: the trip was less than three months away, and they’d have to raise their own funds to cover their costs. So it was something to marvel at when, a scant few months later, I touched down in Rome and prepared to welcome fifteen other young adults from the U.S. and Canada on a weeklong synodal pilgrimage. One pilgrim, CSTM alumna JoAnn Lopez, had shared with us a vision she had of us praying over synod delegates, and her vision became ours for our time in Rome. During that week, when we would encounter synod delegates, we would ask for their prayer intentions and, when invited, gather around them, sometimes laying on hands, and pray over them. It was profound to be a part of this group of fourteen young women and two young men circling around cardinals and synod mothers—the first women ever to vote in a synod of bishops—ministering to these leaders as they prepared to deliberate about the future of our church. We all returned to our communities as self-designated synod ambassadors, on fire for the potentially of synodality to transform our church and world and prepared to exercise our co-responsible leadership in unleashing its potential. It was an experience I won’t soon forget."
Q: Did you have any key mentors or role models at CSTM or BC? How did they contribute to your leadership skills and help prepare you for your current ministry?
A: "Sr. Barb Quinn and Professors Sr. Mary Ann Hinsdale, Sr. Meg Guider, and Nancy Pineda-Madrid were all important mentors for me during my time at the STM. It was a time in my life when I was grappling a lot with what it meant to be a woman in ministry in a Church where women still routinely encounter sexism and, unfortunately, sexual harassment and even assault. These women mentors created spaces in their classrooms and offices where I could work through the tough questions that come with being a woman in the Church—I did not need to leave my identity as a woman at the door."
Q: As you continue your great work with Discerning Deacons, what is a hope you have for the future of the church?
A: “My hope for the future of the church is as high as it’s ever been right now. One of the primary questions before us at this stage in the global Synod on Communion, Mission, and Participation is in what ways the current ecclesial structures and organization support or impede the exercise of co-responsibility on the part of each and every baptized person. Within the present synod, everyday Catholics are, at least in theory if not always in practice, being encouraged to name the places their lived experience comes into tension with church life and teaching. Many of us have had disempowering experiences in church spaces, and it is important to name and validate those experiences for what they were. However, too often, we—particularly the laity—conclude from our experiences of disempowerment that we are powerless—and that is not true. I am convinced that this has to do with the mass exodus of young people from the church. If we are empowered in our co-responsibility, we may be more likely to stay and work for change. I don’t blame anyone who has left; it’s not without reason that many people feel powerless in this Church, and just because we are called to co-responsibility does not mean there are not significant barriers in many places to answering that call. But more pathways are emerging, and that gives me great hope. I also have a lot of hope about the revitalization of diakonia as a charism to which all Christians are called—something I believe that the current discernments about women deacons and about the permanent diaconate as a whole have the potential to crack open. What difference could a permanent diaconate that includes men and women, restored to its roots in prophetic service, make in the Church and world today? What difference would it make if the entire people of God were revitalized in our call to prophetic diakonia, in part by such a renewal of the diaconate?"