NEW WINE STATEMENT re ORDINATIONS
- 29th June 2002
As a group of women who recognise their own call to ordained ministry in
the RC Church, members of New Wine empathise with the frustration of the
ordinands who have taken all possible steps to prepare themselves for ordained
ministry in the RC tradition. We accept that they have discerned, each for
themselves, the Holy Spirit leading them to go beyond preparation and actively
seek the fullness of ordination. We understand and respect that they are acting
out of primacy of conscience and wish them every blessing on their
ministries.
However, there is a point at which, if private convictions take public
form, as with the ordinations, everyone involved with the same cause becomes
implicated by association. Parties on both sides need to recognise the full
consequences of crossing the boundary between private conviction and public
expression. By challenging the current authorities so publicly, the women
ordinands have forced other parties to associate or disassociate themselves
from their actions. As a consequence New Wine members state that they do not
accept the ordinations as authentic symbolic action for the whole movement for
the ordination of women in the RC Church.
The ordained women are choosing to put themselves beyond engagement with
the present holders of authority within the institutional RC church. Many
others, including women who have fully prepared themselves for ordained
ministry, wish to continue down this avenue of engagement and witness, however
tortuous, unsatisfactory and frustrating it may be. It is inevitable therefore
that, whatever our private sympathies, as members of New Wine we must
disassociate ourselves from the ordinations of the women on 29th June 2002 on
the grounds that we wish to keep open all possible avenues of communication
with the institutional authorities.
Jackie Hawkins New Wine representative to
WOW New Wine, Great Britain 19th June 2002
