Something to Think About . . .

"Gender, Gospel, and Global Justice," the third international conference of Women's Ordination Worldwide, will take place in Philadelphia, September 18-20, 2015. To register, click here.


Related Off-site Links:
We Have No Shortage of Vocations. What We Have is a Shortage of Vision – Christine Schenk (National Catholic Reporter, November 20, 2014).
Pope Francis and Christian Conservatives Team Up to Promote Patriarchy – Patricia Miller (Religion Dispatches, November 20, 2014).
Cardinal O'Malley: If I Started a Church, I'd Love to Have Women Priests – Teresa M. Hanafin (Crux, November 16, 2014).
End Marginalization in the Catholic Church – Roy Bourgeois (The Washington Post via The Progressive Catholic Voice, September 17, 2013).
St. Mary Magdalene: How the Apostle to the Apostles Subverts Patriarchy – Meghan Clark (Millennial, July 22, 2013).
Ministry, Not Maleness, is the Theological Starting Point for the Priest – James Moudry (The Progressive Catholic Voice, February 18, 2009).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Sister Teresa Forcades on Queer Theology
• No Patriarchal Hierarchy, No Rigid Conformity
• Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
• Fr. Roy Bourgeois: "We Need Women Priests in Our Church For It to Be Healthy and Complete"
• Quote of the Day – May 4, 2014
• Angela Bonavoglia on the Church's "Continued Demonization of Women"
• Roger Haight on the Church We Need
• Clearing Away the Debris
• “We Are All the Rock” – An interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest Judith McKloskey

Colleen Kochivar-Baker on the First Anniversary of the Papacy of Francis

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the March 13, 2013 election of Argentinian Jesuit, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the 'chair of Peter,' upon which he sits as Pope Francis, the 266th Bishop of Rome.

Over at her always erudite and insightful blog Enlightened Catholicism, Colleen Kochivar-Baker offers a must-read analysis of the reign of Francis and, by extension, the complex reality of the Roman Catholic Church today. Following is part of what Colleen has to say.

One thing I've learned [in the first year of Francis] is that there are at least four different Roman Catholic Churches. There is the Latin American version, the Anglo/Euro version, the African version, and the Oriental version and some of these versions are very very different in their worldview. When I looked at the results of the Univision poll which tested the views of Catholics on sex and family issues in 12 different countries I was seriously shocked at how far apart Africa was from the rest of the global Church, especially the Anglo/Euro Church. I shouldn't have been surprised because the Anglican Church has been dealing with that split for decades. Catholicism's first chance to hash this split out will come in October at the Bishops Synod on the family. We'll find out if Francis is any better at dealing with this chasm than the Anglican Primate Rowan Williams because the Catholic results show this split is not the result of progressive Anglican theology, it's about different worldviews, most of them having to do with women and gender expectations.

This brings me to the second thing I've learned this past year. Neither the Church nor Pope Francis has any idea of what to do with the problem of women in the Church. At least Francis recognized it's a problem, but his notions about the Marian and Petrine Churches do not address the problem much less solve it. I understand that Francis is taking his concepts from Von Balthasar who had a great deal of influence on John Paul II. I suppose it's a nice concept if one wants to keep men in total control because it places the feminine as the heart of the Church with the masculine as the head of the Church...a nice complimentary situation which really appealed to JPII. Really, what woman could possibly be offended by being given the role of Mary in the scheme of things? Perhaps a woman who understands that in this particular scheme of things Mary is mythologized perfection and mere mortal women are neither perfect nor myths. I've often wondered why women have to emulate perfection but men get to emulate Peter who isn't exactly anyone's concept of perfect, but I digress. This idea of Von Balthasar's only flies if you accept the underlying assumption that women somehow embody empathy, relationship, and nurturing and men don't, won't or can't without sacrificing their masculinity on the altar of celibacy. I don't happen to buy any of it, but then I also happen to believe the clerical priesthood is the root and branch of all the Church's current scandal. Which brings me to the third thing I learned this year.

Pope Francis is a priest before he is anything else. I've written that before. His defense of the Church over clerical abuse must stem from how much of a victim he feels as a Catholic priest in today's climate. One wonders why he has empathy for every other form of human misery, but not victims of his own clerical class. He better get over it because there is more to come. He can speak all he wants about the cancer of clericalism but that cancer doesn't go away because someone calls it cancer. Cancers have to be cut out, not left in place to become the next miracle for the next saint from the Vatican saint factory. Clerical abuse stands as the most salient indictment of the whole Catholic clerical system and how abusive it is to the laity, to fellow priests, and to Jesus Himself. Francis can not let this one go. If he lives long enough to call another Vatican synod it should be on the priesthood because family aside, if change doesn't come to the priesthood even the Church in Africa is going to lose its Catholic identity due to lack of sacramental access. Without meaningful change there is no doubt clerical sexual abuse will continue... and bishops will keep hiding it, especially in countries which do not have Anglo reporting requirements.

To read Colleen Kochivar's commentary in its entirety, click here.


Related Off-site Links:
Pope Marks Anniversary with Prayer and a Tweet – Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere (AFP via Yahoo! News, March 13, 2014).
Pope Francis After a Year – Thomas Reece (National Catholic Reporter, March 14, 2014).
Pope Francis: Has His Revolution Even Started? – Paul Valley (The Guardian, March 11, 2014).
A Year with Francis – Rocco Palmo (Whispers in the Loggia, March 13, 2014).
Interactive Timeline: Pope Francis' First Year in Quotes – Pam Cohen (National Catholic Reporter, March 13, 2014).
The Public Pope: Why the Intense Fascination Paid to Pope Francis—or Any Pope—Isn’t Good for the Catholic Church – Paul Baumann (Slate, March 11, 2014).
Five Truly Radical Things Pope Francis Could Do to Improve the Catholic Church – John Gallagher (Queerty, March 13, 2014).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Pope Francis' Understanding of Catholicism: An Orchestra in Which All Can Play!
Astounded
Why I Take Hope in Pope Francis' Statement on Gay Priests
Quote of the Day – July 25, 2013
Doing Papa Proud
Quote of the Day – April 17, 2013
The Servant Pope
Quote of the Day – March 13, 2013
Progressive Perspectives on the Papacy (Part 1)
Progressive Perspectives on the Papacy (Part 2)
Progressive Perspectives on the Papacy (Part 3)
Progressive Perspectives on the Papacy (Part 4)
Beyond Papalism

Roy Bourgeois: "I Will Not Recant"

Following is an excerpt from Fr. Roy Bourgeois' open letter to the Rev. Edward Dougherty, M.M., the Superior General of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Maryknoll has been Bourgeois' community for 44 years. On March 8, 2011, he received a letter from Dougherty stating that he must recant his belief and public statements that support the ordination of women. If he failed to do this, he would be dismissed from Maryknoll.

_______________________________

. . . After much reflection and many conversations with fellow priests and women, I believe sexism is at the root of excluding women from the priesthood. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against women, in the end, it is not the way of God. Sexism is about power. In the culture of clericalism many Catholic priests see the ordination of women as a threat to their power.

Our Church is in a crisis today because of the sexual abuse scandal and the closing of hundreds of churches because of a shortage of priests. When I entered Maryknoll we had over 300 seminarians. Today we have ten. For years we have been praying for more vocations to the priesthood. Our prayers have been answered. God is sending us women priests. Half the population are women. If we are to have a vibrant and healthy Church, we need the wisdom, experience and voices of women in the priesthood.

As Catholics, we believe in the primacy and sacredness of conscience. Our conscience is sacred because it gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing. Conscience is what compelled Franz Jagerstatter, a humble Austrian farmer, husband and father of four young children, to refuse to join Hitler's army, which led to his execution. Conscience is what compelled Rosa Parks to say she could no longer sit in the back of the bus. Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood. And it is my conscience that compels me to say publicly that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, against our Church and against our God who calls both men and women to the priesthood.

In his 1968 commentary on the Second Vatican Council's document, Gaudium et Spes, Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said: "Over the pope . . . there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary, even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority."

What you are requiring of me is not possible without betraying my conscience. In essence, you are telling me to lie and say I do not believe that God calls both men and women to the priesthood. This I cannot do, therefore I will not recant. . . .

– Roy Bourgeois

________________________

If you want to express your support for Roy, here are some telephone numbers and addresses.

Call or email Rev. Edward M. Dougherty, Maryknoll Superior General at (914) 941-7590 and edougherty@maryknoll.org, or write to him at PO Box 305 Maryknoll, NY 10545-0305.

Send a letter of support to Fr. Roy at PO Box 3330 Columbus, GA 31903.

You may also want to sign this petition on the Women’s Ordination website.



Recommended Off-site Links:
Christian Sacrifice and the Unholy Crusade to Defrock Roy Bourgeois – Michele Somerville (Religion Dispatches via The Progressive Catholic Voice, April 7, 2011).
Catholic Church Targets Proponent of Women’s Ordination; Feminist Theologian – Mary E. Hunt (Religion Dispatches, April 8, 2011).
Fr. Roy Bourgeois: Ordination of Women Inevitable – Gary Stern (Journal News via The Progressive Catholic Voice, August 11, 2009).
Ordination of Women in Minneapolis Reflects Emerging Renewal of Priesthood and Church – Michael Bayly (The Progressive Catholic Voice, August 19, 2011).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
When Expulsion is the Cost of Discipleship
Fr. Roy Bourgeois: "We Need Women Priests in Our Church For It to Be Healthy and Complete"
Angela Bonavoglia on the Church's "Continued Demonization of Women"
Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
In Prophetic Obedience to the Spirit
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis
“We Are All the Rock”: An Interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest, Judith McKloskey
Revealing a Hidden History
Out and About – July 2009

Image: Michael Bayly (August 2009).

More on Sunday's Ordination

Friends, I posted the following article today on the Progressive Catholic Voice. (NOTE:To comment on this article, please do so here at the PCV. Thanks.)

___________________________________

Ordination of Women in Minneapolis Reflects
Emerging Renewal of Priesthood and Church

By Michael Bayly
Progressive Catholic Voice
August 19, 2009

On Sunday, August 16, 2009, Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) hosted its Sixth Midwest Region Ordination in Minneapolis. It was an event that saw approximately 500 people gather to witness the ordination of Mary Katherine Kusner to the deaconate, and Mary Frances Smith, Linda Ann Wilcox, and Mary Suzanne Styne to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican does not recognize such ordinations and last year declared that those ordained within the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement are excommunicated “in latae sententiae” - a type of excommunication which church officials say occurs automatically upon certain actions. RCWP, however, reject this penalty of excommunication, claiming that they are “loyal members of the church who stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women.” Accordingly, they see their ordinations moving the Church forward “in prophetic obedience to the Spirit.” RCWP’s ultimate goal is “a new model of ordained ministry in a renewed Roman Catholic Church.”


Mary, the woman of Nazareth, as role model

Presiding Bishop Regina Nicolosi reminded those present at Sunday’s ordination that “today’s joyful celebration” was taking place on the feast of the Assumption of Mary. Accordingly, she encouraged the ordinands, those already ordained, and all who “live out the priesthood of all believers,” to “model their lives after the woman of Nazareth.”




In her homily, Bishop Nicolosi (pictured above, second from left) offered a number of reflections on how Mary, the mother of Jesus, may function not only as a “role model for diaconate and priesthood,” but as an image of God.

“Together [many Christians and people of other faiths] have started to explore the feminine face of God,” said Nicolosi. “I believe the figure of Mary can help us in this exploration.”

Acknowledging Mary’s immense appeal to Christians throughout history and across cultures, Nicolosi nevertheless observed that the hierarchical male church “did not always know what to do with her.” Accordingly, “they often manipulated her and made her appear to be either a powerless girl or a bloodless queen on a pedestal, far out of the reach of the average woman. Yet her connection with the people remained strong.”

Nicolosi also shared an insight she gained from a recent trip to Egypt: “I saw the image of Isis with her son Horus on her lap and it became clear to me that Isis builds the connection to the Great Goddess who reigned at the time when God was a woman, and that Mary whose Romanesque depictions look so similar to Isis, carries this tradition into Christianity.”

She shared too Catholic feminist theologian Mary Daly’s critique of Christianity as “a strange religion where the mother bows before the son,” and encouraged those in attendance at Sunday’s ordination to imagine the Father, the Mother, the Son, and Sophia “all up there together, seated in equality, without competition, in peace.”

“Can we bring this image down to earth and model our church after it?” asked Bishop Nicolosi. It would be, she said, a church “where we are all one in Christ Jesus; a church where the phrase ‘in persona Christi’ does not exclude half of the population; a church where Mary our sister can be a role model for priesthood. After all, she did say: ‘This is my body, this is my blood, and she said it at least twice: in the stable and under the cross, and no one stopped her from holding and touching Him then.”

Nicolosi concluded her homily by inviting all present to take seriously the words of the Magnificat, and, like Mary, proclaim a God who pushes down the powerful and lifts up the poor, who feeds the hungry, who invites all without exception to her son’s table.”

“Let us stand under the cross with her,” said Nicolosi, “and wait with her and the community for the arrival of the Spirit. Let us give birth to a priesthood and church that not only proclaims that a woman’s body was worthy to be taken into heaven, but that also acknowledges that a woman’s body is worthy to stand next to the altar.”




A hidden history

According to RCWP, the tradition of women presiding at eucharistic celebrations dates back to the earliest days of the church. Furthermore, the organization states that “historical and archaeological evidence reveals that women served as deacons, priests, and bishops from the 2nd to the 6th centuries AD.” Deacons Phoebe, Sophia, and Maria; Priests Leta and Vitalia; and Bishops Theodora and Alexandra are often cited as part of this evidence.

Scholars such as Dorothy Irvins collaborate RCWP’s claims. “We have to remember to approach things from the historical critical method,” said Irvins in a 2003 interview. “Accuracy comes from our attempt to understand evidence in its own time, not projecting today’s ideas on the evidence. We are asking questions they didn’t ask. The teachings of Jesus imply that the early Christian Church was created around a family model. They were brothers and sisters to one another in Christ. The gender taboos and the top down leadership came later. While we do not have a formal job descriptions of early church leadership, the evidence is clear that both genders carried out the various ministries.”

One may well ask: what happened? Many contend that when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire in 312, the Christian community was caught in a cultural conflict as it moved from worship in house churches where women’s leadership was accepted, to worship in public places where women’s leadership violated Roman social codes of honor and shame. In the fourth century, male church leaders at the Council of Laodicea suppressed women leaders because of the belief that women were created subordinate to men. Interestingly, it was during this same time period that the image of Mary of Magdala was changed from that of a strong female disciple and proclaimer of the Resurrection to a repentant prostitute and public sinner. Scholars such as Dr. Jane Schaberg believe this was done deliberately to discourage female leadership in the church. It also supported the rise of a male-only and, in time, celibate priesthood.


New forms of priesthood and church

RCWP Bishop Patricia Fresen (pictured at right), who spoke in the Twin Cities last month, believes that this male-only, celibate priesthood is “on the way out.” She maintains that we are also witnessing in our time the end of clericalism, i.e., the dividing of people in the church into the ‘nobility,’ who are the clergy, and the ‘serfs,’ who are the laity. “That gap is closing,” she says.

Fresen also believes that the “Roman imperialism, whereby the Vatican imposes Roman culture on all of us,” is similarly coming to an end. “Despite Vatican II’s emphasis on collegiality,” said Bishop Fresen, "the pope still rules the Church with the Curia, not with the college of bishops. But I believe that the Church’s feudal, imperialistic structures will go, and there will be - let me dare say it - a democratic Church.”

She finds evidence of such a democratic church in the new forms of community and priesthood that are emerging in both Europe and the U.S. Often known in the U.S. as intentional eucharistic communities, these “new forms of community” are comprised of small groups of people who gather around married priests or women priests. Some communities have no ordained priest at all. What they do all have in common, says Fresen, are “democratic structures – with people elected to be leaders, even their priests, and for a limited term of office. Everybody shares in the way the community is run. That’s what is coming.”

In places all over the world, says Fresen, the sensus fidelium, the ‘sense of the faithful,’ is growing. “We, the people, are making up our own minds. We are better educated. We are more aware. And we are not willing to wait for the ‘official’ hierarchical church that is holding on desperately to old forms. That way of being church is being left behind.”


A matter of justice

Bishop Fresen also discussed apostolic succession, noting that there is a growing understanding of this concept that is much broader than the one the official church presently has, and which has been called ‘passing on the baton’.”

Although Bishop Fresen and other RCWP deacons, priests, and bishops are ordained in that narrow understanding of apostolic succession, they say they do so as they are claiming the right for women to be ordained in the same way as men. “It’s a matter of justice,” says Bishop Fresen. Yet she also maintains that the “narrow understanding of apostolic succession will not go on forever.”

She believes the church will in time embrace the emerging community form of choosing and ordaining, a form that is developing alongside the RCWP movement and the married priests movement. “All three will go along for quite some time,” says Fresen, “and then find a new way of forming something new. But they all need to be present now.”


A paradigm shift

Fresen places the phenomenon of the “emerging church” in a larger context by acknowledging the “huge paradigm shift that humankind is presently experiencing.”

She notes that people are saying that every 500 years or so there is a “great convulsion in human consciousness, in its evolution.” Fresen contends that the last major convulsion or shift, as far as the Church is concerned, was probably the Reformation.

“Now we are obviously coming to the point of another paradigm shift,” she says. “We can see signs of it in the economic recession, which is a sign, many maintain, that something has to change. Related to this is our awareness that humanity and its relationship with Earth is changing and needs to change if we are to survive. We are learning to respect Earth rather than exploit her. But it’s terrible that we always seem to have to get to a point where things are so critical, when they’re breaking down, before we are willing to learn. And it’s the same with the Church. I believe that what is coming to an end in the paradigm shift that we are in is forms of domination. We are learning to be mutually respectful rather than for one group to be dominating another. If we think of humankind and Earth, men and women, of clergy and laity, we are learning to be less dominating and more mutually respectful, to find equality rather than dominance. In chaos theory, when systems change, the most aggressive form of chaos comes just before the transformation of the system. So it gets to its worst before it changes. That seems to be happening with regards to Earth, the economy, and the Church. The domination is getting worse and worse. But the change is about to come. In fact, it’s already here.”

For growing numbers of people, Sunday’s RCWP’s ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood is just one sign of this necessary change that’s already taking place in our midst.







NOTE: To comment on this article, please do so here at the Progressive Catholic Voice.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
In Prophetic Obedience to the Spirit
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis (2007)
“We Are All the Rock” – An Interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest Judith McKloskey
Responding to Excommunication
The Discussion Continues
Mary of Magdala
Revealing a Hidden History
Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 3: A Journey Begins
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 5: My Lunch with a “Medicine Bearer”

Recommended Off-site Links:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
Ministry, Not Maleness, is the Theological Starting Point for the Priest - Jim Moudry (Progressive Catholic Voice, February 18, 2009).
“Spiritual Paternity”: Why Homosexual Men Cannot Be Ordained Catholic Priests - Paula Ruddy (Progressive Catholic Voice, January 13, 2009).

Images: Michael Bayly.

In Prophetic Obedience to the Spirit

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis

Yesterday in Minneapolis, the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement hosted its Sixth Midwest Region Ordination - an event that drew over 500 people to witness the ordination of one woman to the deaconate, and three women to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican does not recognize such ordinations and last year declared that those ordained within the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement are excommunicated “in latae sententiae” - a type of excommunication which church officials say occurs automatically upon certain actions. Roman Catholic Womenpriests, however, reject this penalty of excommunication, claiming that they are “loyal members of the church who stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women.” Accordingly, they see their ordinations moving the Church forward “in prophetic obedience to the Spirit.” The movement’s ultimate goal is “a new model of ordained ministry in a renewed Roman Catholic Church.”

I’ll be writing more about all of this in the next few days for the Progressive Catholic Voice, but for now here are some photos of yesterday’s ordination liturgy accompanied by excerpts from the “introductory comments” in this liturgy’s program booklet.

______________________________

Our ordination liturgy today is important for a number of reasons. Today we are prepared for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in this public ordination. Since the ordinations of the Danube Seven in 2002, we stand with our foremothers and forefathers validly ordained in Apostolic Succession through anointing in the laying on of hands. Today, as we ordain women to the diaconate and priesthood, Roman Catholic Womenpriests Midwest region, we stand in union with you, the People of God, as our public liturgy re-dresses an injustice in the Roman Catholic Church that continues to deny ordination to women. We commit ourselves in an act of prophetic obedience that listens to the Spirit from our hearts, that listens to the signs of the times, and that listens in community where the Spirit moves and awakens us to new levels of awareness.

We stand, too, as women and men of the long view. Historical and archaeological evidence reveals that women served as deacons, priests, and bishops from the 2nd to the 6th centuries AD: Deacons Phoebe, Sophia, and Maria; Priests Leta and Vitalia; and Bishops Theodora and Alexandra. Before that, in the Upper Room on Pentecost, God surprised the followers of Jesus, women and men whose hearts were open and who were ready for the coming of God’s Spirit promised by Jesus for all humankind, for all time. All of these people of God served as leaders in those first years of the building of Christian community.

Today, in the ordination of deacon and priests, we continue in the renewal of our first Christian traditions and we celebrate the fact that Jesus invited women as well as men to become leaders. And just as Jesus promised, He is still with us and will continue to send the Spirit, Wisdom Sophia, to dwell with us and lead us forward in being Church in a way that is faithful to the original intent of our brother, Jesus the Christ.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis (2007)
“We Are All the Rock” – An Interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest Judith McKloskey
Responding to Excommunication
The Discussion Continues
Mary of Magdala
Revealing a Hidden History
Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 3: A Journey Begins
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 5: My Lunch with a “Medicine Bearer”

Recommended Off-site Link:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Angela Bonavoglia on the Church’s “Continued Demonization of Women”

Award-winning journalist and author Angela Bonavoglia (pictured at right) recently wrote a powerful commentary for the Womens Media Center. It was subsequently reprinted by The Huffington Post, and I’m taking the liberty of reprinting today at The Wild Reed.

I found Bonavoglia’s reflection well worth reading. Perhaps you will too.

_________________

Voices Carry

Lay Catholics and Priests Challenge Bishops
on Abortion and Ordination

By Angela Bonavoglia

For a long time now, long enough for the [Roman] Catholic Church to shrink more than any other denomination in the United States, the targets of its greatest condemnation have been women and the men who support them. While losing 30 million followers in recent years, the church has saved its most incendiary rhetoric and most extreme acts of censure for those who are pro-choice or pro-ordination.

It is no accident that in the Catholic Church today, the greatest, most horrific, most horrendous sin a human being can commit is a woman’s sin. Men do not present their bodies for abortions; women do. I felt the impact of that judgment as I’d never felt it before when I sat in St. Peter’s Cathedral in my hometown diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, in October listening to the letter written by Bishop Joseph Martino. Intended to intimidate Catholics who were thinking they might vote for Barack Obama for president, regardless of his pro-choice views, the letter was required reading by every priest in the diocese, in place of a homily. While careful not to single out the woman who has an abortion, except to chastise her for her “selfishness,” the letter came across as a virulent anti-woman screed.

The reading, which lasted over half an hour, said that abortion is “so heinous, so horribly evil, and so absolutely opposite to the law of Almighty God that [it] must take precedence over every other issue.” The letter likened the justification for condemning abortion to the justification for denouncing “Nazi officials who murdered mentally ill people.” It argued that abortion was actually a graver moral ill than waging a bloody, unprovoked “unjust” war. It likened pro-choice supporters to Cain who murdered his brother Abel – Cain who knew that in time “everyone that findeth me the murderer shall slay me (Genesis 4:13-14).” It declared pro-choice candidates to be “supporters of homicide.”

Sitting there listening to that vitriol, I shuddered. Where is the line, I wondered, between denouncing abortion, and by extension the women who have abortions, and taking up arms – or torches – against them?

The Catholic Church’s commitment to excommunicating anyone who dares to even express support for the ordination of women is yet another manifestation of the church’s continued demonization of women. The church maintains that this is God’s law, not its own. And it does this despite the archaeological and Biblical evidence of women priests, deacons and bishops; the conclusion of the Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission that there are no Biblical or Scriptural grounds forbidding women’s ordination; and the simple fact that Jesus never ordained anybody.

These two issues have not accidentally come together. Indeed, the church hierarchy’s increasingly hysterical opposition to abortion (and the whole range of women’s reproductive health issues) and to women’s ordination grows from a fundamental tenet of all patriarchal religions: that women cannot represent the Divine because women’s bodies are the locus for humanity’s greatest sins. Empowered women are dangerous.

What’s new in this new millennium is that an increasing number of Catholics are fighting back. Despite the excoriations of bishops like Martino, the majority of Catholics, 54 percent, voted for Obama for president. So did a whopping 67 percent of Hispanics – the fastest growing group of Catholics in America.

Despite decrees of excommunication – which bar a Catholic from receiving the Eucharist, a Catholic burial, all of the sacraments – scores of women have been ordained priests through the provocative and burgeoning Roman Catholic Womenpriests Movement. And they’ve done so with the support of a growing number of Roman Catholics, including priests – most recently, the legendary and beloved anti-war activist, Father Roy Bourgeois.

A Maryknoll priest for 36 years, Bourgeois is a giant in the peace movement, a Vietnam vet, a Purple heart recipient, and founder of the School of the Americas Watch. SOA Watch is devoted to ending U.S. training of Latin American military at what is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, military personnel who in the past have committed grave atrocities.

Following in the footsteps of Father James Callan – who participated in the pioneering public ordination of pastoral minister Mary Ramerman in Rochester, New York, in 2001, before 3,000 ebullient supporters, after which both were excommunicated – Bourgeois co-presided and gave the homily at the ordination ceremony of his long-time peace activist friend Janice Sevre-Duszynska. Because Sevre-Duszynska is a member of what has become a very high profile international women’s ordination movement, Bourgeois’ participation did not go unnoticed.

In response to the Vatican’s letter demanding that he recant his support for women’s ordination or be excommunicated, Bourgeios issued his own excoriation. “Women in our church are telling us that God is calling them to the priesthood,” he wrote. “Who are we, as men, to say to women, ‘Our call is valid, but yours is not.’”

Equating his support for women’s ordination with the whole of the social justice agenda, he went on: “Eight years ago, while in Rome for a conference on peace and justice, I was invited to speak about the SOA on Vatican Radio. During the interview, I stated that I could not address the injustice of the SOA and remain silent about injustice in my church. I ended the interview by saying, ‘There will never be justice in the Catholic Church until women can be ordained.’ I remain committed to this belief today.”

Crediting his faith in the church’s sacred concept of conscience, the final barometer of what is right and wrong, Bourgeois refused to recant his “belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our church.” He warned his fellow priests against being the “voice of complicity” and urged them to “break our silence.”

Father Roy’s excommunication is all but certain. But so it seems is a growing Catholic rejection of the all-male hierarchy’s self-serving positions on issues that deeply affect women. The fevered pitch of ecclesiastical rhetoric is living proof of the power of those voices, which are now coming from the pews – and from the altar.


NOTE: This piece was originally written for the Women’s Media Center website. The WMC is a non-profit organization founded by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan, dedicated to making women “visible and powerful in the media.”

What HuffingtonPost.com says about the author: Angela Bonavoglia is an award-winning journalist and author. Her latest book, Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church (Harper Collins), spotlights the crucial of role of women—from nuns to lay women, theologians to activists, ministers to newly ordained women priests—in all areas of progressive Church reform. Bonavoglia interviewed women who are re-thinking Catholic theology and changing the face of ministry; resurrecting the lost lives of female Church leaders and boldly moving ahead with women's ordination; challenging the Church’s sexual repression, defending the victims of clergy sex abuse, campaigning for optional celibacy, and calling the Church to openness and accountability.

Since the Papal transition in 2005, Bonavoglia has been a guest on more than 60 television and radio shows speaking about women and Church reform. Bonavoglia also has written extensively about reproductive health. She authored The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion, an oral history spanning seven decades, from the 1920s through the 1980s, which includes Catholic women’s special struggles with abortion (Random House 1991; Four Walls Eight Windows 2001). With a foreword by Gloria Steinem, the book features Bonavoglia’s interviews with such notables as Whoopi Goldberg, Rita Moreno, Grace Paley, Kathy Najimy, Linda Ellerbee, Jill Clayburgh, Anne Archer, and Polly Bergen.

In addition to her journalism, Bonavoglia has held key administrative positions with, and served as a communications and development consultant to, major foundations, public agencies and nonprofit organizations. She holds an MSW from New York University.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Fr. Roy Bourgeois: “We Need Women Priests for the Church to Be Healthy and Complete”
• Fr. Roy Bourgeois Threatened with Excommunication
• Mary of Magdala
• Revealing a Hidden History
• Reflections on The Da Vinci Code Controversy
• Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code
• Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis
• Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
• Could Christ Have Been a Woman?
• Responding to Excommunication
• The Discussion Continues
• Crisis? What Crisis?
• “We Are All the Rock” – An Interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest, Judith McKloskey

Fr. Roy Bourgeois: "We Need Women Priests in Our Church For It to Be Healthy and Complete"

As I noted in a previous Wild Reed post, Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois (pictured at left) has been threatened with excommunication by the Vatican if he fails to recant his support of female ordination.

This past Thursday, Fr. Roy was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! program. What he shared was very powerful – poignantly so at times.

Also, like so many speaking out for justice for women within the Roman Catholic Church, Roy Bourgeois speaks prophetic words in a spirit of love and hope.

Following are excerpts from Democracy Now!’s interview with Fr. Roy Bourgeois.

________________________________

Amy Goodman: It’s good to have you with us. I know you’re preparing for this mass protest outside what used to be called the School of the Americas, but let’s talk about what is also immediately at hand, this excommunication. Please explain.

Roy Bourgeois: Yes. Let me put it this way, Amy. For eighteen years, I have been speaking out against the injustice of the School of the Americas, and for many years I’ve been speaking out against the injustice of the war in Iraq. As a Catholic priest for thirty-six years, in conscience, I cannot remain silent about injustice in my Church. I and many have come to the conclusion that the exclusion of women in the Catholic Church is a grave injustice, and I simply must — I cannot, in conscience, accept the Vatican’s demand that I recant my belief and my public statements in support of women’s ordination. This is simply wrong.


Juan Gonzalez: Well, Father Bourgeois, the letter came from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What is that organization within the Vatican?

Roy Bourgeois: Well, you know, it’s the Church hierarchy in the Vatican that deals with Church teaching, Church doctrine. And they, of course — the Catholic Church has for years taught — for centuries, actually, now — that women cannot be priests. But to be very honest, you know, a growing number, the majority of the Catholics and so many priests and bishops now realize that this is not theologically sound. There is nothing in the Scriptures to justify this.

As Catholics, you know, we profess that the call, that invitation from God to priesthood, to the ministry of priesthood, comes from God. That call is very sacred. When I was in the military years ago as a young man, I felt God was calling me to the priesthood. I was in Vietnam at the time. And I entered the Maryknoll community. I was ordained in 1972 and assigned to work in Bolivia, later El Salvador. And during my thirty-six years of ministry, I met many priests who, like me, felt God was calling them to the priesthood. And I must say, I have come to the conclusion that to say to women that our call is valid, but yours is not, is simply a grave injustice. We are tampering with the sacred here.


Amy Goodman: In your letter, Father Roy Bourgeois, you write that having an all-male clergy implies that men are worthy to be Catholic priests, but women are not. You say, “According to USA Today, in the United States alone, nearly 5,000 Catholic priests have sexually abused more than 12,000 children.” What does that have to do with your support of women priests?

Roy Bourgeois: Well, you know, it was very difficult for me to add that in my letter, but it must be said. You know, I’m sad to say that the Vatican, our Church leaders, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, took many years to respond to the crimes of thousands of priests who sexually abused over 12,000 children. That was first reported in 1988. It wasn’t until eleven or twelve years later that they began to intervene and investigate and really, you know, demand that priests step down from the priesthood.

You know, less than three months after I attended the ordination of a woman in Lexington, Kentucky, less than three months, I received a letter from the Vatican demanding that I recant within thirty days or I will be excommunicated. The severity, the swiftness of the Vatican’s letter, I think it calls into question, you know, just what’s going on here. What really is the problem? I do believe that I did not commit a crime. I am following my conscience. Women—you know, it’s amazing, the thousands of priests and the many bishops were aware of these crimes of their priests, they remained silent. These priests committing the crimes and the bishops who remained silent have NOT BEEN EXCOMMUNICATED. Yet, the many women who have been ordained to the priesthood and the priests and bishops who support their ordination ARE EXCOMMUNICATED. I do believe that there is a problem here. This is also a grave injustice.


Juan Gonzalez: Father Bourgeois, your order, the Maryknolls, like the Jesuits, are known as more independent orders within the Church. Have the higher echelons of your order attempted to intercede in one way or another in your defense on this?

Roy Boureois: I’ve been with the community for thirty-six years, and it’s our work overseas, especially in Latin America, and seeing firsthand the brutality of the military that leads us to say what we’re saying, to be critics of US foreign policy. Over the years, they have been very, very supportive, of course, of my work with the School of the Americas. And they, as a religious order, joined the thousands who are calling for the closing of this school — it should not exist — and will join their voices with the many coming here this weekend to call for the closing of this school of assassins. They did say to me they will do everything they can to keep me as a member of the community.

Again, we are known for our work in peace and justice for the — you know, walking in solidarity with the victims of violence and injustice. And what they and so many of us see, of course — and we join our voices with the women of the Catholic Church, who are oppressed, who are being treated unjustly. We join our voices with the women, who are saying, “We want to be treated with equality.” Our God, we believe, has created men and women of equal stature and dignity. And again, there is no reason why women cannot be full members of the community and ordained as Catholic priests.

Any institution, organization that’s controlled where the power is in the hands of any particular group, whether they be men or women, is not healthy. Our Church, the Catholic Church, is going through a real crisis. There are thousands of churches that are being shut down because there is a lack of priests. The sexual abuse crisis has really rocked the Church to its roots. I am convinced, of course, that if we had women priests and women bishops, that sexual abuse and the silence during those years would not have been possible. Women simply would not have been silent. I’m also convinced, if we had women priests and women bishops, there would not be such silence about this war in Iraq. I’m convinced, too, that there would be, if we had women priests and women bishops, they would have called for the closing of this School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. We need women priests in our Church for it to be healthy, for it to be complete.


Amy Goodman: Father Roy Bourgeois, why do you think the Church hierarchy is coming after you now? You’ve held these beliefs for a long time.

Roy Bourgeois: Well, Amy, I have poked . . . a number of beehives in my life. This is the biggest beehive I have ever poked. I’ve poked the beehive of the patriarchy. I think I and others, priests and women and bishops — I’m not alone in this — who call for the ordination of women, I think what we’re threatening at its very core is the power, is power, privilege. I mean, let’s face it, this is an all-boys’ club. And we are card — I and many others are card-carrying members. Again, in conscience, I felt I had to break my silence. I’ve broken that silence many times over the years, and I’m calling on my fellow priests and Catholics and Church leaders to break their silence.

But what we have here, at its very core, is the sin of sexism. And like racism, no matter how hard we try to justify it or bring in, you know, God to bless discrimination, in the end it is always immoral.

But again, at its very core, we’re dealing with power, those in power who have had that power and control for centuries, who simply don’t want to give it up. But I have to say, they must give it up. They will be, in a way, forced to give it up. There are many similarities about, you know, what’s going on in Latin America. We’ve learned that all of these repressive militaries that have held onto their power for so long were not going to give up that power and the abuse of their power through the goodness of their heart. And I’m sad to say that the patriarchy of faith communities, like the Catholic Church and other faith traditions, they will have to give up their power because of the grassroots movement from the bottom up organizing, like in Latin America, so many saying, “Basta! We will simply not allow you to repress us as you have been doing for so long.”


Juan Gonzalez: And, Father Bourgeois, if the Church does move forward with this excommunication, what is the — is there an appeals process that you can follow through to be heard on this issue, or is that the end of it?

Roy Bourgeois: Well, needless to say, I will not be silent. I will be going to Rome. A number of fellow priests have already asked me, said they would like to join me, along with a bishop friend. We will be going to Rome to appeal this. I would want to have, and I think I have a right to — and it’s reasonable to request, after thirty-six years as a priest, a short meeting with Pope Benedict and other leaders in the Church to appeal my case, to simply appeal to them personally and say what I said in my letter to them that this cannot be justified.

And so, let me say, I feel very, very much at peace with my decision. My biggest concern, when I got that letter from Rome, I must say I was nauseous. I knew it could be possible, but I thought it was remote. Excommunication is very serious in the Catholic Church. My biggest concern was my family, a close-knit family in Louisiana, Catholic. My father, ninety-five years old, a devout Catholic, goes to church every day. And after mailing that letter, putting a lot of time in my response, I drove to Louisiana and met with my brother, two sisters and my father and gave them the letter. And I really was concerned about how they would take this. My brother said that I would be breaking my father’s heart, and that hurt me.

But at that meeting — we all had the family meeting — my father first spoke, and he simply said, “Look” — he said to my siblings, my brother and sisters, his children — he said, “Look, God brought Roy back from the war in Vietnam. God took care of Roy in his mission work in Bolivia and El Salvador and brought him home safely. And God is going to take care of Roy now. He’s doing the right thing, and I support him.” When he said that, I wept. I was so at peace. I was so joyful. And to see now my brother and sisters join my dad in supporting what I’m doing, it takes a great burden off of me, it makes the struggle a lot easier. And there is nothing — let me just say that there’s nothing that the Vatican can do to me to take away that inner peace and serenity that I feel now. I know there are some rough times ahead, but like in our SOA Watch movement, we will move ahead with hope, with hope.

To listen to and/or read the full transcript of Democracy Now!’s interview with Fr. Roy Bourgeois, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Fr. Roy Bourgeois Threatened with Excommunication
Mary of Magdala
Revealing a Hidden History
Reflections on The Da Vinci Code Controversy
Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis
Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
Could Christ Have Been a Woman?
Responding to Excommunication
The Discussion Continues
Crisis? What Crisis?
“We Are All the Rock” – An Interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest, Judith McKloskey

Image: Fr. Roy Boureois photographed in October 2000 by Michael Bayly (from Gallery 6: Closing the SOA of Faces of Resistance).

"We Are All the Rock"

The following interview with my friend, Roman Catholic Womanpriest, Judith McKloskey (pictured, at right, with me at her August 2007 ordination in Minneapolis), will be published in the forthcoming August 2008 issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice.

___________________________


“We Are All the Rock”
An interview with Roman Catholic Womanpriest,
Judith McKloskey
By Michael J. Bayly
The Progressive Catholic Voice
August 2008

Michael Bayly: Can you explain what exactly the Vatican recently said about women who have been ordained as Catholic priests and deacons?

Judith McKloskey: On May 29, 2008, (ironically, the eve of the 577th anniversary of St. Joan of Arc being burned at the stake) the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly named the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith) issued a General Decree.

The translated text follows.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith General Decree

Regarding the crime of attempting
sacred ordination of a woman

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to protect the nature and validity of the sacrament of holy orders, in virtue of the special faculty conferred to it by the supreme authority of the Church (see canon 30, Canon Law), in the Ordinary Session of December 19, 2007, has decreed:

Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.

If he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman or if the woman who has attempted to receive holy orders, is a member of the faithful subject to the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches, remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1443 of the same Code, they will be punished with major excommunication, whose remission remains reserved to the Apostolic See (see canon 1423, Canon Law of the Eastern Churches).

The current decree will come into immediate force from the moment of publication in the 'Osservatore Romano' and is absolute and universal.

The Decree is signed by William Cardinal Levada, Prefect, and Angelo Amata, SDB, Titular Archbishop of Sila.

An accompanying article by Catholic News Agency, mentioned several recent ceremonies (referred to as “attempted ordinations”), including the November 11, 2007, ordinations in St. Louis of Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath and the May 4, 2008, ceremony involving Kathy Redig of Winona, Minnesota.

“In latae sententiae” is a type of excommunication which church officials say occurs automatically upon certain actions. It has been interpreted historically to mean that persons are not permitted to receive the sacraments nor to hold public leadership positions in the church. In many cases, this type of excommunication can be lifted locally. But in these cases, church officials say, only the Apostolic See can receive these persons back into the Church. This particular decree, in official language, is “absolute,” “universal,” and “immediately effective.”


Michael Bayly: How has this personally affected you? What’s been the response of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement?

Judith McKloskey: From my childhood I remember a poem Edwin Markham wrote:

He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

My immediate response was deep sadness that the top authorities in our church have chosen to issue this decree. Instead of spending energy and resources addressing the major issues facing our church and world, they are hurling verbal lightning bolts at a few mostly-retirement-aged women and men. A healthier way to “protect the faith and unity of the Church” is to bring policies and practices more in line with the values Jesus lived for. Church authorities could be dedicated to protecting the young from abuse, insuring equal treatment of women and the poor in our world, and addressing global environmental degradation. Church authorities could re-establish access to the sacraments as its top internal priority. Persons could be called forth for sacramental ministry based on their gifts, not their gender or marital status.

Soon after my initial reaction, I began to see the decree as an affirmation that church officials are now taking the Roman Catholic Womenpriests initiative seriously.

If church authorities would engage in dialog rather than in pronouncements, they could find ways to incorporate our efforts into the larger church. We do not intend to form a schismatic church. We are asking our church to expand its imagination in service of its mission.

I am not surprised that the Vatican has issued this decree, just disappointed. When I took this public step, I knew there would be consequences, some of which would not be pleasant. God calls me to follow in faith, even when that means risking the wrath of church officials. My ordination is valid; it was performed by a bishop who was consecrated by three bishops in active ministry in the Roman Catholic church. I reject the phrase “crime of attempting sacred ordination of a woman.” Pedophilia is a crime; covering up pedophilia is a crime; stealing from the church is a crime. Responding to a call from the depths of one conscience is not a crime.

Personally, the excommunication decree has affected me mostly as a time and energy drain. Thinking about it takes energy and time I prefer to spend serving the needs of the persons and communities who contact me. I cannot count the number of Catholics who have expressed to me their delight in and gratitude for the fact that women are now serving as deacons and priests within Catholic communities. I often hear: “It’s long overdue!” and “Your courage brings me hope for the future of our church.” At the seven ordinations in which I have fully participated, the tears in the eyes of those assembled, the cheers and the ovations greeting the newly ordained stand for me as lighthouses on the difficult and foggy days. I continue to receive communion with a clear conscience. Far from “gambling with my soul” (to use the phrase of one conservative commentator), I am in joyful peace. Each day affirms my choice to respond publicly to a call I first heard in early childhood.

The Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement rejects the penalty of excommunication. We consider ourselves loyal members of the RC church. We stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to what we believe is an unjust canon law – canon 1024 – which reserves ordination to men. We believe canon 849, that baptism [not gender] is the gateway to the sacraments. Recent scholarship affirms that women were ordained in the first 1,200 years of our Church’s history. We are reclaiming that history. Roman Catholic Womenpriests offers a model of a renewed priesthood in a community of equals. And yes, some people and some church leaders find that very threatening.


Michael Bayly: Can you talk briefly about the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement? When did it start? What are its aims? How prevalent is it?

Judith McKloskey: The Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) movement began in Austria and Germany in the late 1990’s, when some Catholic women convened to study theology. They, in effect, developed a seminary program. Upon the completion of their studies, they eventually located several bishops who agreed to ordain some of them. On June 29, 2002, seven women were ordained priests by validly ordained male bishops. The ceremony took place on a ship on the Danube River, between two countries. These seven women were formally excommunicated. The next year two of these women were consecrated bishops. There are now five bishops, including one from California. These women were consecrated as bishops so that they will ordain women to the transitional diaconate, then to the priesthood.

RCWP is an international initiative. Its mission is to spiritually prepare, ordain, and support women and men from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, who are committed to an inclusive model of church, and who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to minister to the People of God.

Growth in Europe is slow; their circumstances are greatly different from those in the U.S. and Canada. RCWP has grown quickly here in North America. The first ordination in North American took place in 2005 on a ship on the St. Lawrence Seaway, between the U.S. and Canada. The first ordination in the U.S. was in 2006 in Pittsburgh. Because of the rapid growth, regions were formed. In 2007, there were seven ordination ceremonies in North America; as of July, there have been five ordinations in 2008 in North America. Two or three more ordinations for 2008 have been scheduled.

In addition to the public ordinations, there have been some what we call “catacomb ordinations.” These are for women and men whose public ordinations would most likely result in loss of livelihood, because they work within Roman Catholic churches and organizations.

As of July 20, 2008, six years after the first U.S. woman, Dagmar Celeste, was ordained a priest through RCWP, there are 30 priests in RCWP and 11 deacons in the U.S. In Minnesota, as of this date we have three priests: Regina Nicolosi of Red Wing, Kathy Redig of Winona, and myself, Judith McKloskey, of Eden Prairie. Mary Smith of Long Lake is now a deacon. Other women are in RCWP’s formation program; still others are discerning their calls.

(NOTE: A book about RCWP, entitled Women Find A Way, has recently been published. Information about it can be found here. Another good source of information is the official RCWP website, which can be viewed here.)

Above: Bishop Patricia Fresen (center) with newly
ordained womenpriests, Rev. Judith McKloskey and
Rev. Alice Marie Iaquint – Minneapolis, August 12, 2007.

Michael Bayly: Monsignor Angelo Amato of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently declared that: “The church does not feel authorized to change the will of its founder Jesus Christ,” an apparent reference to Christ having chosen only men as his apostles. How do you respond to such a contention?

Judith McKloskey: When I first read, back in 1994, that church officials said the church didn’t have the authority to ordain women, I laughed. Think about it. When have you EVER heard Roman Catholic church leaders say they lack authority to do anything? When it serves one’s purposes, it is easy to hide behind the skirts of history.

The contention that the church cannot ordain women because Jesus did not ordain them is illogical. First, Jesus did not ordain anyone to the priesthood as it has evolved over time. Second, Jesus chose mostly married Jewish men as disciples. Jesus did not ordain any Caucasian, celibate men. But then, this entire discussion is not about logic, nor has it ever been. As Rev. Nancy Taylor said after the recent RCWP ordinations in Boston, “Prejudice in liturgical clothing is still prejudice.”

As far as interpreting the will of Jesus and speaking for Jesus, anyone claiming that ability would be wise to be cautious. At most we can hope to spend our lives in humble discernment of what we believe is God’s voice in our world. God is God; we humans are not.


Michael Bayly: What drew you to be ordained? What sustains you during these difficult times? What keeps you hopeful?

Judith McKloskey: My path to sacramental ministry has been a spiritual river in my life since early childhood. Where could the yearning go? In 4th grade I was told girls couldn’t even serve at the altar, much less become priests. The river went underground for years, because priesthood was a forbidden dream for women in the Roman Catholic church. Little did I know, God was using all the experiences of my life to prepare me. Outside of and within my Roman Catholicism, the formation continued. On January 9, 1994, I responded fully, clearly and consciously to this call to sacramental service. Every day of my life since then I have lived as priest, to the best of my ability. After continued theological studies and completing the RCWP formation program, I was ordained to the diaconate in October, 2006.

On August 12, 2007, to my great joy, I was publicly ordained to the priesthood here in Minneapolis, along with Alice Iaquinta from the Milwaukee area. Ordained to the diaconate that day were Kathy Redig of Winona, and Ree Hudson and Elsie McGrath of the St. Louis area.

What sustains me is prayer and spiritual practice, mine and that of the many persons who are kind enough to keep me in their prayers and thoughts. My family and friends bring me strength and the perspective of humor. What also sustains me and brightens the occasional down days is God’s people. Sensus fidelium is a phrase used to indicate that a doctrine or belief is fully valid because it is accepted, or received, by the people. I believe that God’s love includes all of us. When the official church leaders speak from a narrow perspective, I remember the many people who have contacted me to offer support and affirmation and gratitude.

My business card includes the phrase “celebrating sacraments and rituals with faith communities.” At baptisms, weddings, anointings, reconciliations, attendance at ordinations, and at the bedsides of those chronically ill or near the threshold of death, I have been privileged to witness the sacred events of people’s lives. Throughout this first year I have been invited to celebrate Eucharist with diverse communities. It is an honor to discern with and facilitate the community prayer of a particular group of people with their God. This mission and these shining moments in time are what keep me going.

Here is one example. One day recently I celebrated Eucharist with a group of people at someone’s family farm. After morning prayer the next day, a community leader invited me to be seated in the center of the circle of people gathered. They’d all heard about the excommunication decree, he said, and found it ridiculous. But they figured it would help me to hear so from them. They surrounded me in the circle, touched me, and many prayed aloud about their gratitude that I had been ordained to serve them as priest. Two spoke of receiving joy and serenity from me. As tears flowed down every face I saw, I remembered that very morning, walking across a field and finding myself standing upon a large flat boulder, hidden among the stalks of waist high grain. The words “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” came to me and I realized it was the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The words are for all of us. We are all the rock upon which Jesus builds – all of us baptized Christians, serving God and each other and our world to the best of our abilities. In this I place my hope!


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis
Thoughts on Ordination, Intellectual Dishonesty, and the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet Joel Speaks
Could Christ Have Been a Woman?
Responding to Excommunication
The Discussion Continues
Revealing a Hidden History
Crisis? What Crisis?
Reflections on The Da Vinci Code Controversy
Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code
Mary of Magdala

Recommended Off-site Links:
Why Ordain Women? - The Australian Ordination of Catholic Women.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
Women-Church Convergence
Women’s Ordination Conference
“Some Women Seeking Ordination Won’t Wait for Church’s OK” - National Catholic Reporter, January 27, 2006.
“The Defiant Deacon” - Minnesota Women’s Press, December 2005.

Recommended Blogs:
God is Not 3 Guys
Bridget Mary’s Blog