[1] The movement evolved from the Church Referendum in Austria in 1995 which was started after the paedophilia scandal around Vienna's Cardinal Groer.
We are Church is represented in more than twenty countries on all continents and networks world-wide with similar-minded reform groups.
[3] Proclaimed in Rome in 12 October 1997, the collaborative developed a manifesto in 1997 which recalled the convening of the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII and outlined five "demands" which focussed on equality within the Catholic Church.
[4] On 4 June 2008, in response to a decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that declared subject to an excommunication whose lifting was reserved to the Holy See anyone who attempted to confer holy orders on a woman,[5] the international movement issued a statement under the heading, "Jesus Christ did not ordain men or women to the ministerial priesthood but to care for and nurture each other as brothers and sisters".
[8] On 22 March 2014, the Tiroler Tageszeitung published an interview with Martha Heizer, chairperson and co-founder of the international movement, and her husband, in which they stated that they had been informed that, in line with canon 1378 §2,[9] they were excommunicated on account of their priestless "private Eucharistic celebrations".