Empowered to Minister

Vicky Gonzalez Burrows, 19 June 2025

There is so much to the ministry journey of Vicky Gonzalez Burrows, even as a young woman, that it is hard to do it justice. Suffice to say that she has been an outstanding person of faith, gifted and called as a Catholic faith leader. However, her uncommon journey as a lay woman has rarely been well understood or acknowledged. May this blog be a small tribute to the often hidden stories of God’s mission in our world.

Vicky found the Catholic Church through her Catholic school, after growing up in a nominal Christian family. As a young person, she was “very inspired and I wanted to change the world”. That passion was directed through the Young Christian Students group, and she joined the school’s church choir and went through the Rite of Christian Initiation. With teachers as mentors, it was a “great experience” in a “lovely environment.”

Although she was only at a Catholic school for 3 years, her involvement with YCS continued. She loved learning about Jesus in a way relevant to her life experiences, and his care for the poor and vulnerable. Vicky joined the local and national YCS teams and quit university to work full-time for six years. It “gave me an early experience of the diversity of church, social justice, and as a lay woman I was empowered to have leadership experiences.”

When she finished school, Vicky continued in the Young Christian Workers and also became a youth worker. While still only 19 or 20, she was asked by a priest to visit a woman of the same age in prison. “I was in prison and you visited me” resonated and Vicky wondered, “What kind of Christians are we if we can’t visit those in prison?” The experience had a “profound impact” on her, and one day driving home she was “overcome by a sense of connection, joy, emotion.” Vicky realised that she was not ‘bringing Christ’ into the prison, but visiting him there. Yet seeing the limited time that mothers could spend with their children inside also awakened her to social injustices. 

Vicky became a prison chaplain with women and juveniles in her 20s and began leading regular Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion services. She found them “really meaningful” as she knew something of the women’s pains and hurts. It was moving to be able to break open the gospel, share some commentary and hear reflections from the women’s lives and what they prayed for. The liturgy provided a structure “to create something that was relevant and touched into their experience.” She “held sacred space” for them and sometimes even acted out gospel, such as the woman caught in adultery. One particular memory was of a Mothers’ Day service, at which most of the women were mothers, living with their pain of separation. Many in the prison would not go to church on the outside, or would find it difficult, but in prison they longed to participate. “To take communion from a parish community into prison felt like a real privilege, a holding of imperfection.” 

Later, Vicky became the head of Aboriginal Catholic Ministry in Perth. During this time she also worked for Reconciliation WA, with two particular projects: to connect faith communities with reconciliation and justice reinvestment. At the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry she was the first lay person to follow the priest who had led it for 40 years. In time, Vicky was pleased to hand over the role to an Aboriginal woman.  

“Privileged” to receive a number of scholarships and opportunities, Vicky studied a Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Theological Studies, a Holy Land study fellowship, a Catherine McAuley Leadership Award and the Australian Catholic Bishops Interfaith Fellowship for Women, all while she worked full time. With this foundation, she lectured at Notre Dame University in social justice and tutored in theology. Vicky also established a house for single Catholic women, in which she lived for 6 years.

Today, in her 30s, Vicky is the Executive Director of Mission and Ethos at MercyCare, responsible for the provision of spiritual and pastoral care throughout aged care, early learning, disability services and family and community services. She is also president of Spiritual Care Australia, with a concern for the professionalisation of safe spiritual practice and rethinking the provision of spiritual care in a decreasingly religious society. She is also married with a husband, 2 stepchildren, and 2 children and another on the way.

Vicky has not only ministered in a diaconal way, but experienced diaconal ministry for her family. She and her future husband did their marriage preparation at the Centre for Marriage, with a Deacon who was a psychologist, a military chaplain and married himself. He provided such “connection and accessibility” that they asked for him to celebrate their marriage. For this, he worked alongside a female liturgist and it seemed natural to have both male and female ministry in this most important sacrament. It was “beautiful and meaningful”, and he could relate to them from his life experience, and “shine a different reflection on the gospel”. Later on, he baptised their first child as well.

This experience has allowed Vicky to value the diaconate as a commissioned and visible ministry that is grounded in a call. Deacons have a freedom from parish ministry and she has seen them employed fruitfully in various social agencies of the church in Perth. They also come with skills from their different professions. It makes Vicky wonder about the value of such public commissioning. While she has led multiple large Catholic ministries, she has only ever been commissioned in-house or liturgically as an extraordinary minister of communion. With wonderful gifted and empowered ministers like Vicky, what might be the potential for “very interesting” possibilities in the future?

Prayer Network