Just saw a young woman on the news who represents the Womens’ Ordination Conference. She is on her way to Rome to the Vatican. Geraldo Rivera’s brother Craig asked her if she is going to Rome “to send up a pink puff of smoke” during the Conclave to choose the new pope. She smiled and said well, sort of, but “The mission is to promote awareness that God calls women, too. And that God is not somehow rendered powerless by anatomy.”
I liked that last line… God is not rendered powerless by anatomy.
As a woman priest and bishop, (Independent Catholic — not recognized by Rome of course), I do know what she means — God calls women, too. There are thousands and thousands of female clergy in the world, their Call to service cannot be disputed. They are leading their congregations, their “flocks” just as male priests, pastors, ministers and rabbis do.
But there are no female clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, not even deacons.
As for married priests / clergy … In Judaism marriage is required to be a Rabbi. There are women Rabbis today. St Peter — the first “Pope” — was married because the Bible mentions his mother-in-law.
Also saw a news headline today that there’s a cardinal who proposes allowing women to become ordained deacons. Here’s a link to that article:
http://americamagazine.org/issue/kasper-proposes-women-deacons
Cardinal Kasper Proposes Women Deacons
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
March 11, 2013From CNS, Staff and other sources
A diaconate for women should be considered as a new role for women in the church. Cardinal Walter Kasper made this proposal during a study day discussing how to involve more women in church life, convened as part of the spring assembly of the German Bishops Conference in the city of Trier, in western Germany, on Feb. 21. Kasper spoke of a “deaconess†role that would be different from the classic deacon but could include pastoral, charitable, catechetical and special liturgical functions. The deaconess would not be designated through the sacrament of orders, but by a blessing. Many women already perform the functions of a deacon, he argued, so as a practical matter the possibility cannot be ignored. Cardinal Kasper noted that the female diaconate was foreseen in the church in the third and fourth centuries. Regarding the ordination of women, however, the cardinal said, “I do not think you could change anything in the fact that women cannot be ordained priests; it is the unbroken tradition of the Eastern Church as well as the West.â€
Just found the name of the young woman I mention above who said “God is not rendered powerless by anatomy” on TV. She’s Jamie Mason of the Womens Ordination Council. Google turned up this mention of her in 2011 regarding the defrocking of a priest for secretly ordaining a woman priest.
* * * * * * * * *
…Fr. Roy participated in an unapproved ordination of a Catholic woman as a priest. At the time, he was excommunicated as a Catholic but not expelled. Since then, some kind of unacknowledged truce seemed to prevail between Fr. Roy and the Maryknolls, even though I know Fr. Roy sent a letter last year to other Maryknoll priests asking them to come forward publicly and support the ordination of women.
Two weeks ago, it all came to a head quite suddenly. The Maryknoll superior general ordered him to recant his position or Maryknoll would expel him and ask Rome to defrock him. Jamie L. Mason, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter and a member of Women’s Conference on Ordination, thinks she knows what happened that broke the apparent calm:
Things proceeded rather quietly until this past February, when he participated in a panel discussion at the New York premiere of the documentary Pink Smoke over the Vatican. The film chronicles the struggle for women’s ordination in the Catholic Church, and features extensive clips of an interview with Bourgeois.
The post-film program, apparently, was the last straw for the Vatican and the Maryknolls, who claimed that by participating in this conversation, Bourgeois had disobeyed the explicit instructions of his superiors.
In response to the threatened expulsion, Fr. Roy held a public vigil last Friday outside the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., and read his letter to Fr. Edward Dougherty, Maryknoll superior general, in which he refused to recant.
Among Fr. Roy’s comments:
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.
PHOTO “Where are our Women Priests?”
U.K. protest for Catholic women as priests. Flickrcc/walhalla http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/04/15/why-the-defrocking-of-fr-roy-bourgeois-will-test-the-spirituality-and-sincerity-of-soaw-protest
Much can be said about this, most obviously in its implications for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church. Some compare Fr. Roy’s situation with that of Sister Joan Chittister in 2001. Then, the Vatican asked her superior to prevent her from speaking at a women’s ordination conference in Ireland, but her superior, and all the Benedictine sisters in her convent, refused, citing their vows of obedience to the Spirit and to consensus. The Vatican relented.
On Fr. Roy’s behalf, the Women’s Ordination Conference is circulating a petition to support Fr. Roy which, if so moved, you can sign here. Other groups, such as Roman Catholic Womenpriests, are also calling for help to support him.
In my opinion, this is a classic example of what many of us consider to be a universal truth: ancient ritual and dogma is not an enlightened path toward truth and spiritual fulfillment. If we deny the wisdom of those women called to serve simply due to gender, we may as well return to the days of the witch trials in Salem.
I cannot answer all of the questions of faith, the existence of God, creation, salvation, etc. I feel certain none of us can with any real degree of certainty. But, we can explore, together, the questions and the possible answers and the journey itself will be the reward.
Peace to all.
However…
None of this discussion will matter much until efforts to effect the ordination of women separate themselves from the issue of same-sex marriage, or presumptions that homosexuality is not a disorder. They’re entirely separate issues, and, for now, the truth of women’s equality is (yet again, because women’s stuff must NEVER come first, right?) being held hostage by the unproved possiblity of homosexual normalcy.
I am just wondering:
If Peter was married, than, why the church praised him for “abandoning” his wife , children (?) to go to Rome?
Did his wife also ” abandon” the children (?) to follow her “new” call for God?
Was Peter the first example of “divorced” man?
Or did he ask his wife permission to break the promises of marriage and take the vows of priesthood?
If Peter had children, was it ok to condemn them to starvation, lack of shelter, $ by switching from the sacrament of marriage to the sacrament of priesthood?