German Bishops' Leader Cleared of Abuse Charges

zenit.org
July 23, 2010
 
MUNICH, Germany, JULY 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freibourg has been cleared of charges regarding a sexual abuse case, the offices of the public prosecutor in Konstanz, Germany, confirmed Wednesday.

The 71-year-old prelate, who today is the president of the German Bishops' Conference, was accused of giving a position in 1987 to a Cistercian religious known to have been guilty of sexual abuse.

From 1987 to 1992, then Father Zollitsch was in charge of archdiocesan personnel. The accusation was thus that of complicity in the crimes.

The public prosecutor's office established that there was no evidence to justify holding the archbishop responsible.
 
http://www.zenit.org/article-29980?l=english

 
 
 
 
 
Canadian Anglican Catholic group votes to unite with Rome
Catholic News Agency
July 28, 2010

Vancouver, Canada, Jul 28, 2010 / 01:10 am (CNA).- With “overwhelming support,” a recent meeting of leaders in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) voted to unite with the Roman Catholic Church through the Apostolic Constitution created by Pope Benedict XVI.
 
. . . Read complete article, click here: http://www.womenpriests.org/circles/fb.ashx?m=35539

Misogyny as Church Policy: The Equation of Female Ordination with Pedophelia Fits a Vatican Pattern.
By Eileen M. DiFranco
The Philadelphia Inquirer
July 30, 2010
 

Eileen DiFranco 
 
We might come to understand the present and anticipate the future by studying the past. And so the recent Vatican announcement equating the ordination of women with pedophilia should be seen in the context of the church's pervasive and persistent clerical misogyny throughout its history.
 
While the Vatican of the modern world has gone to great lengths to paint itself as an advocate for women - endowing us with a special "dignity" - its actions continue to indicate otherwise. The unholy comparison of pedophilia with female ordination, and the dismissive attitude of the prelates attempting to justify it, tell women exactly what Rome thinks of them. And those thoughts obviously don't revolve around their dignity.
. . .
 
Read complete article, click here: http://www.womenpriests.org/circles/fb.ashx?m=35546

Bishop of Osnabruck on Women in the Catholic Church
PrayTell - Worship, Wit and Wisdom
July 28, 2010

The Catholic bishop of Osnabruck, Germany, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, thinks that more power for women might possibly have prevented some of the abuse in the Catholic Church.  

 

Bishop Franz-Josef Bode



“The disaster that we experienced in the abuse scandal should actually have led to a radical rethinking of the question of power and the sharing of power in the Church,” said Bode. The abuse scandal has shown “how important the competence of women is, and how much a closed society of men fostered abnormalities.” 

The Bishop expressed his hope for the ordination of women to the diaconate, but noted that this is not likely in the immediate future. 

While the Bishop considers the Roman rejection of women’s ordination to the priesthood to be binding, he notes this about the experience of the Church: “Disputed question which do not arrive at peaceful resolution over a long period take on their own theological quality. Hidden within the tradition itself is a transformative power which can lead to new insights.” 

Summarized and translated from Kathnews by awr.
http://www.praytellblog.c...n-the-catholic-church/

[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; "]One of the things these times need are some intelligently outspoken bishops who are able to speak eloquently and fearlessly about these issues. They need to carve out an inspiring leadership role for the Church. 


These days it seems most of them are more interested in protecting their own turf and leading comfortable lives.  Where are their backbones?  Why aren't they standing up?  Are they all so content to let the Vatican morph into a Catholic Taliban??


There must be more than the Kevin Dowlings and Franz Bodes in this international Church who are willing to start challenging the warped things that are going on inside the Church hierarchy.   

Nancy Corran was ordained by roughly 150 parishioners of the Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community rather than a bishop on Saturday, July 31, 2010.  
by Christopher Cadelago
Sign On San Diego
August 1, 2010


Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community ordained a female pastor Saturday, risking excommunication despite assertions that it represents the true roots of Roman Catholicism.

Associate Pastor the Rev. Rod Stephens opened the evening with a warning: Any woman attempting to be ordained, or anyone who ordains a woman is automatically excommunicated. “Right on!” one woman cried out. 



Nancy Corran was ordained by roughly 150 parishioners of the Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community rather than a bishop on Saturday, July 31, 2010 


“A woman is not an appropriate subject of the sacrament of priestly ordination and therefore she cannot receive it,” said Sister Sara Butler, a teacher of dogmatic theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and the author of “The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church.” “The people who adopt that point of view have departed from church teaching and therefore no longer accept the authority of the Catholic Church.” 

The movement to ordain Catholic female priests begun in Europe where a bishop ordained seven women in 2002. The organization Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which preaches equality by allowing woman into the priesthood while downplaying allegiance to the pope, has 78 female candidates, deacons, priests and bishops in 23 states, and more than 100 worldwide. 

One of its founders, Victoria Rue, said female priests are ordained in apostolic succession, the same way as men, in order to claim equality and validity of orders. Rue, a lecturer at San Jose State University and a priest at Sophia in Trinity in San Francisco, called on the organization to accept the ordination. 

“There are many ways to be ordained. And we certainly consider [Saturday’s ceremony] a valid ordination,” said Bridget Mary Meehan, one of five bishops in the national movement and an excommunicated nun. “Actually, it’s quite historic.” 

Leading up to the 12th century, women served as deacons and priests and were chosen by their local church communities, said Gary Macy, a theology professor at Santa Clara University. Female priests and deacons heard confessions, preached and did the liturgy, Macy said. 

“The best scenario, of course, would be if the bishop of San Diego would recognize and do this ordination. Their beliefs, apart from the ordination of women, are very similar,” said Macy, author of “The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West.” 


From Left to Right: Rev. Nancy Corran, Rev. Dr. Jane Via, Rev. Rod Stephens


“Under rather difficult circumstances, the church community is doing the best they can. They’re aware of their options and they consciously made this decision.” 

Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community, led by Via and Stephens, promotes itself as “A new way to be Roman Catholic.” The parish’s 150 members, 80 of whom attend weekly services at Gethsemane Lutheran Church, reach out to those who feel marginalized by traditional services. 

Via, a county prosecutor, said the parish is committed to equality through “radically inclusive” language, worship and ministry.
“Ordained leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have just lost touch with the basic gospel message to love all, give all, forgive all and judge no one but yourself,” she said. “They have confused authority with power over one another and the people of God. The pope may wear Prada shoes, but the emperor has no clothes.” 

The parish called for Corran to lead amid Via’s battle with breast cancer. 

“I see her as someone who can serve as a good example of our church,” said Esther La Porta, a board member at Mary Magdalene. “We haven’t done a lot of outreach, or advertisement, and I know Nancy will be a great representative.” 

Corran holds a masters in divinity from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and studied theology and biblical languages in Switzerland. 

After returning to San Diego to care for her ailing father, she became “certified and ready for call” to ordination in Presbyterian Church (USA). But intrigued by Mary Magdalene, she attended its first liturgy and noticed the shift in the locus of power. 

“It was really a movement of Roman Catholic people who could not worship with integrity in the Roman Catholic Church,” said Corran, of San Diego, noting the affect the appointment could have on parish children. “You look at the all-male image. It trickles down to the community, to the children. They know there is nothing they can’t do.” 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 


DEVELOPMENTS 



August 2005: Jane Via and Rod Stephens develop parish model featuring a woman priest as pastor, based on a discipleship of equals, democratic governance and inclusivity. 

November 2005: Inaugural mass at Mission Hills United Methodist Church. Parish later selects the name Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community. 

June 2006: Via ordained a Roman Catholic priest in Rorschach, Switzerland. 

May 2009: Parish relocates to Gethsemane Lutheran in Serra Mesa to ensure sacraments are available to all members. 

 
February 2010: Community approves calling Nancy Corran to ordination.


Christopher Cadelago: (619) 293-1334; christopher.cadelago@uniontrib.com 
 
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/01/congregation-ordains-catholic-female-pastor/

  

Dear friends, 

Though our Team at womenpriests.org does not promote illegal ordinations, we do recognise the prophetic spirit that characterises the women who pursue ordination through Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

We have a discussion thread devoted to dialogue about their work. It is located here:  Options: Merits of the Alternatives. 
We also have a section in our library devoted to information about a variety of options that women who are called to priesthood can presently pursue.  This part of the library is located here: Vocation.

Please keep us in your prayers.  

with love and blessings,

~Sophie~

Opinion Time:  Testing Time for American Women Religious
cathnews.com
August 2, 2010

 
American women religious, whose leaders meet this month, find themselves in a terrible position, writes the NCR in an editorial. 

On one hand, they can defend their approach to religious life. Through decades of prayer and work together, they have discerned that approach, articulated in their Vatican-approved charters, as God's call.  The process has drawn them deeply into social apostolates through which they have become a powerful representation of Catholic life throughout US culture and the wider world.  

 

On the other hand, they can work quietly in attempting to navigate the institutional shoals, placating those among the hierarchy who believe that a 19th-century model of religious life, shuttered up and held in place by an unthinking acquiescence to a male hierarchy — mistakenly referred to by some as obedience — is the salvation of religious life.The option holds the possibility of avoiding a public confrontation and the unpleasant consequences of such a standoff. 

However, it also holds the likely possibility that religious life in the United States will be re-engineered in secret by the men in the Vatican. It holds the prospect that the soul of a project rooted in and encouraged by the Second Vatican Council would be hollowed out. 

The social sciences have a term for the situation of women who feel compelled to be compliant with the men who are bent on demeaning and humiliating them: They call it battered wife syndrome. 

So much is at stake in the decisions the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will take about how to proceed because the very integrity of the organization has been called into question with a Vatican-initiated "doctrinal assessment" of its activities. 

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22595

For related article, see here:  Apostolic Visitation of US Women Religious

Tuesday, September 14, 2010, London England: public screening of film Conspiracy of Silence and debate about celibacy in the Church. Speakers include Prof. Tina Beattie, Helena Kennedy, QC, Fr. John McGowan, Bishop Malcolm McMahon, Jack Valero, Stephen Wang.  For more, see here: http://www.conspiracyofsilence.co.uk/

If you can, please join us in attending! We'll be there to contribute to discussion about celibacy and to raise the questions about the issue the Vatican does not want you to talk about -- women priests in the Church!

'Being a Woman Priest is What I Feel I Am Called To Do'
by Patsy McGarry 
Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
July 31, 2010


The Vatican’s directive confirming its policy of excommunication for those involved in the ordination of women has been greeted with defiance by dissidents in the US and dismay by Irish campaigners


‘SHOCKING.” “A travesty.” “A slap in the face.” “The action of a paranoid, scared, running-for-cover Vatican.” Those are just some of the phrases used by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan to describe the latest directive from Rome on the ordination of women.
The Vatican’s Normae de Gravioribus Delictis , published two weeks ago, concerns sanctions in canon law for clerical child sex abuse, concelebration of the Eucharist with Protestant ministers, heresy, apostasy, schism – and the ordination of women. It reaffirmed the sanction of excommunication for anyone involved with the ordination of women in the Catholic Church.


Soline Humbert outside the Church of St Thérése, Mount Merrion, Dublin. Cardinal Daly refused to accept from her a 10,000-name petition calling for women priests. Photograph : Matt Kavanagh

Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan is a leader of an ever-growing band of dissidents from this policy. She is “happy to be excommunicated. If they keep going like this there’ll soon be more ‘out’ than ‘in’. We’re at the heart of the church, renewing it.

We’re not going to put up with second-class membership any more. We are an empowered community of Catholics. Mysticism and social justice are in my DNA as an Irish Catholic. I love the faith, but this corrupt church has to be reformed. Where are the excommunicated paedophiles or bishops who covered up the abuse of children?”


Meehan is from Crosskerry, near Rathdowney, Co Laois, which the family left for the US in 1956. Crosskerry is one of those still centres of the universe.


“It hasn’t changed since we left,” she recalled. She visits regularly. “So many, many relatives. Every three or four years.”
She will speak at the Humbert Summer School in Castlebar on Friday, August 20th.


Publication of Normae de Gravioribus Delictis has been “a watershed moment” for the Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP) group, to which she belongs. It has attracted huge media attention to the RCWP in the US.


Meehan is based in Florida, where, she says, “the publicity is unbelievable”. Members of the movement in Europe have said to her that if the group can make headway in the US, the Vatican will take heed.


Rome just has to “get over the sexism and misogyny”, says Meehan. “To say women are not worthy is so over the top. It is very hateful to women. Very, very hostile to women.”


It has got to the stage, she claims, where people are now seeking out the RCWP as “the Catholic Church has become too toxic now”. Besides, “there were women deacons, priests, and bishops for the first 1,200 years of Christianity, in the Celtic Church too. There is a letter from Rome condemning women priests in the Irish church back then.”


Meehan was ordained bishop last year, having become a priest in 2006, and serves communities in Virginia and Florida.


The first women Catholic priests, the so-called “Danube Seven”, were ordained on that river in Germany in 2002. Five were German, one was Austrian and one was American. The following year saw the ordination of two women Catholic bishops, one German, one Austrian.


As explained on the RCWP website, the ordinations “are valid because of our unbroken line of apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church. The principal consecrating Roman Catholic male bishop who ordained our first women bishops is a bishop with a line of unbroken apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope.”


The Vatican does not agree. On May 29th 2008 its Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) stated that the women priests and the bishops who ordained them would be excommunicated latae sententiae (automatically).


The website of Ireland’s Brothers and Sisters in Christ (Basic) movement for Catholic women priests in Ireland has not been updated since October 2007. According to Soline Humbert, this is because Basic, which was set up in 1993, has become something of an underground movement. Anticipating the May 2008 action of the CDF, articles and names were removed from the website to prevent people losing their jobs as theologians, chaplains, and so on.


“Fear is an awful thing, another form of institutional abuse,” she says. “People who believe one thing are being forced to do another. At heart it is a dysfunctional church, where people cannot speak about what they believe in conscience.”


This is all such a long way from the Basic seminar in 1995, when participants included the future President, Mary McAleese, and the retired professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth, Fr Enda McDonagh.


Soline Humbert believes she has a vocation for the priesthood and has celebrated the Eucharist in her home every day this past 14 years. “I am not the only one,” she says. “I know several. Some religious sisters do it as well. My first chalice and paten were given to me by a religious sister and another by a community of religious sisters.”


Originally from Versailles, Humbert fell in love with Ireland on a visit in the late 1960s. She attended Trinity College Dublin in the early 1970s and married here. She has two sons. One bishop said to her that “perhaps one of your sons will have your vocation to the priesthood”. She was not impressed. She has not had much luck with bishops.


Then Catholic primate Cardinal Cahal Daly refused even to accept from her a petition calling for women priests. It had 10,000 names. He wrote to her saying he could not do so, as the Pope had spoken on the matter. She wrote a letter to this newspaper so that the signatories could be informed. She quoted from the cardinal’s letter. He wrote to her again, expressing his dismay that she would quote from their private correspondence and saying she could not be trusted.


For Humbert, “it was a moment of insight into the abuse of power. He did not want it known that he had refused to accept the petition”. She tried to get a meeting with the cardinal, without success.


She sent him a Valentine’s card one February. It asked: “What about a date?” The tactic worked. She was invited to Armagh. “It was the toughest meeting. The man was steel,” she says.


She met Cardinal Desmond Connell when he was Archbishop of Dublin. He told her: “A woman wasn’t on the cross and so couldn’t represent Christ. There was not much meeting of minds.”


Cardinal Seán Brady simply refused to discuss the issue with her at all. “He said no, he couldn’t. Rome has spoken,” Humbert says. “He came down like a guillotine.”


Similarly with the late Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster. He was visiting Dublin and was shaking her hand as she began talking about women priests. “He withdrew his hand. He left me absolutely . . . as if I had leprosy,” she says.


She had a meeting with the current Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, about six years ago. “He did listen. He warned me, in conscience, that I was risking excommunication. It is not something I want.”


Humbert feels a strong sense of vocation. “In conscience, it is what I feel so strongly I am called to do,” she says. “I do love the church. I have received a lot from it and suffered a lot because of it. It is my church.”


Fr Eamonn McCarthy has also suffered because of his belief that there should be women priests. Currently a curate at Dunlavin, Co Wicklow, he was without a job until 2004.


For four years he was in “a stand-off” with the then Archbishop, Cardinal Connell.


“I pointed out to him that there was quite a range of women with a decent calling to the priesthood. They were not mad. I said I would like it made known to Rome,” he says. He doubts whether it was.


He was out of a job until Cardinal Connell retired and Archbishop Martin took over, when “a posting was made available”. He is unlikely ever to be a parish priest or an office holder in the church. Such people must take an oath to uphold the faith, which includes an acceptance that women should not be priests. McCarthy would refuse to take that oath. There are “a fair few” priests who share his views on women’s ordination but, like him, “they just get on with it”.


© 2010 The Irish Times


http://www.irishtimes.com...731/1224275874936.html

Allowing girl servers ended prejudice, inequality, says Vatican paper 
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
August 9, 2010

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Permitting girls to serve at the altar marked the end of a form of inequality in the church and allowed girls to experience the formative power of directly assisting with the mystery of the Eucharist -- the core of the Christian faith, said the Vatican newspaper.

Assisting the priest during Mass is both a service and a privilege and represents "a deep and responsible way to live one's Christian identity," said an article published Aug. 7 in L'Osservatore Romano.

"The exclusion of girls from all of this, for the sole reason of their being female, has always weighed heavily and represented a deep inequality within Catholic education," it said. 

 
Young men and women participate in a vigil in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Aug. 3 during a pilgrimage for altar servers. Allowing girl servers ended an inequality in Catholic education, said the Vatican newspaper. (CNS/Paul Haring) 

Even though there may have been many parishioners who begrudgingly accepted the presence of girls as servers only when there were no boys to fill the role, "overcoming this barrier was very important for young women," it said.

Permitting girls to assist at the altar "has meant the idea they were impure because of their gender came to an end" and has meant girls, too, "could live out this extraordinarily important formative experience," it said.

The article came the same week Pope Benedict XVI met with more than 53,000 altar servers from Europe during his Aug. 4 weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. The majority of young pilgrims, aged 14-25, were female -- 60 percent, according to organizers.

The pope thanked the young people for their important service to the church and said by assisting priests at the altar, they were helping bring Jesus closer to the people and helping to make him ever more present in the world.

In 1994, the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued rules officially stating that local bishops could allow women and girls to be altar servers.

The Vatican clarified in late 2001 that bishops could not require priests to use altar girls and that the use of male servers should be especially encouraged, in part because altar boys are a potential source of priestly vocations.


http://www.catholicnews.c...tories/cns/1003218.htm

Sister Theresa Kane Speaks on Effective Liturgy at Chicago Conference
The National Catholic Reporter
August 9, 2010
 
Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 1979 when she was asked to make a welcoming address to Pope John Paul II during his first visit to the United States. In the address, Kane urged the pope to include “half of humankind” in “all the ministries of the church.”   

 
 
Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane (NCR photo/Joshua McElwee)

Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane spoke July 22 in Chicago during the second annual Celebration Conference on Effective Liturgy., “A Knock at Midnight: Celebrating Christ in Urgent Times.” The title of her talk, presented on the Feast of St. Mary of Magdala, was “Woman, Why Are You Weeping?” 

Sr. Kane is internationally known for her 1979 welcome to Pope John Paul II during his first visit to the United States with an appeal for the inclusion of women in all ministries in the church and her subsequent public support over the years for the ordination of women. 

She began her talk with a brief history of the current biblical scholarship to recover the figure of Mary of Magdala from layers of distortion in order to recognize her role as a significant leader in the early church. Sr. Kane praised the organization Future Church, founded in Cleveland in 1997, for its work in assessing the projected impact of the priest shortage and promoting creative approaches to meeting the church’s need for liturgical and pastoral leaders. 

Sr. Kane reminded her audience that Mary of Magdala is mentioned prominently in all four Gospels as a companion and disciple of Jesus, one of a group of women who accompanied and supported him in his ministry, were present at his death and burial and the first witnesses to his resurrection. Mary’s status as “the apostle to the apostles” was celebrated in the early church and is still preserved in the Eastern church. But by the fourth century in the West, as part of an official suppression of female leadership, Mary of Magdala was represented in sermons and iconography though a conflation of scriptural passages that identified her primarily as a prostitute and public sinner. 

In the second half of her talk, Sr. Kane spoke of the current situation of women in the church and the inspiration to be found in examining the witness of St. Mary of Magdala. An edited version of her remarks follows: 

Woman, why are you weeping? 

“Let us place ourselves for a moment in the garden where Mary was. This is a woman who has just experienced the torture and most brutal form of death of a very close friend, a death that was indeed an execution, capital punishment, with very few supporters. The disappearance of people after his death and burial was more out of fear that they would be captured and arrested and perhaps tortured. 

“But we get the image of Mary of Magdala as someone who was a close, intimate friend, a companion, certainly a benefactor to Jesus, and a disciple. So each of us here, we also weep openly or we weep interiorly at the death of loved one, whether that death be from what we call natural causes or much more traumatic and sudden. But we need to enter into that garden scene, feel the depth of grief, the anguish and pain at so horrible a death, and we know the relationship that Mary had to Jesus, certainly a close, intimate friend and companion.

And at his death, we can conclude that she probably had a conviction that a grave injustice had been done. When one has a clear vision and insight about injustice, one weeps not only with anguish but from anger, with rage. Rage comes from courage, and at any injustice, all of us should be filled with rage. 

“The scriptures have said continually, ‘God is slow to anger.’ God is not without anger. Why does God have a sense of anger? Because of injustice. Why do we have a sense of anger? Because of injustice. So such an emotion is core to righting the wrong, core to bringing about justice. So I feel that her weeping in the garden is certainly because of a great a loss, but also because she was facing of a grave injustice. 

“And then the question, what do we do about that? 

“Let me speak now of the women of our Catholic community today. Why do we weep? Without the full incorporation of women into leadership, discipleship and all church ministries -- which was the vision of the church council -- without full incorporation into and participation at the liturgy, we do not experience community as women at liturgy, and we do not experience life-giving worship. Our presence at liturgy has become and continues to be a source of anguish, sadness, even emptiness. We continue in severe tension over the basic language to describe humanity, and this has gone on for decades, the sexist language that we refer to as exclusive language The continued use of terms like ‘man,’ ‘his,’ and ‘mankind’ denies our very presence. It certainly doesn’t give recognition and respect; and we are surely invisible. The anguish, the distress, the absence of a sense of worship in community has gotten much more severe. 

“In 1978, Pope John Paul I said publicly, and I have never forgotten this and continue to proclaim it. ‘We need to call God mother as well as father.’ It was a powerful statement. I can still remember him being quoted. Actually I saw him on television at the end of a conference he was having. Because until we do that, our language of God is exclusive, patriarchal, militaristic. 

“And one of the severe tensions we have in the church is between the vision we have of community and governance that is monarchical. I have been with bishops who say, ‘We are not a democracy.’ And the question to the bishop is then, what form of governance are we?  And do we not respect cooperation and participation and inclusion? We talk of community but we still have the governance of a monarchy.

“So the language about God is a source great distress to a growing number of women. Catholic women weep because male catholic leaders, many of them bishops and pastors, are culturally ignorant and culturally impotent regarding the presence, the potential, the human aspirations of women to be adult, mutual co-responsible collaborators. A wonderful word. ‘collaborate.’ It means we co-labor. I am mutually equal with you. 

“When I was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, we were called to Rome and been having meetings with the Vatican year after year after year, since before 1970. If anyone wants to know why this (current) investigation is happening, they have not been listening for 35 years. We have done it repeatedly. So much so that we say, why should we do it again? But, good women that we are, women religious, we go back again. A very difficult issue. 

‘As Sr. Mary Collins said, she would love to have a conversation with the bishop who told her they worshiped different Gods. I find myself saying, there are so few of them I could have ever had a conversation with. Even if there was a conversation, there isn’t the mutuality, there isn’t the respect, there isn’t the sense that indeed we are radically equal. 

‘When we finished our meeting in Rome, I said to one of the sisters, find out what they thought about us being there, what they thought about the meeting, and let me know when you come home. Very faithfully, she came home and said, ‘Theresa, they’re saying over there that you sisters came over here as if you were equal.’ I said, ‘That’s a compliment. Please tell them we are equal!’ 

“That’s the mindset. How do we have a conversation about that? We need to weep. There is a sense of ignorance about the human aspirations of women to be adult, mutual collaborators. 

“Women of the Catholic community. Why are we weeping today? We are in crisis. There are a number of women who have already moved out of traditional Sunday worship. They are still finding where they want to go. We have a number of women who have begun very courageous, strong alternative liturgies, which we believe are valid, mystic, pastoral, spiritual -- all the qualities that are needed for the human soul. 

“We have many who are moving to other protestant traditions. We also have a growing number of women who are doing to feminist liturgies, taking turns presiding, co-presiding, perfectly comfortable with it. I think it’s a conscience call. Maybe it is the beginning of a new church. Maybe this is how we have to look at a Pentecost. I think we need to be willing address it. To continue in an exclusively male priesthood is in my judgment both a form and expression of idolatry. 

“Why is it we cannot have a woman, why is it in our congregations, or you go into your parish church and 80 to 90 percent of those present are women, and no woman can be up there presiding at Eucharist. If the priest doesn’t show up, we have a wonderful Communion service, but you can’t even give a homily because that isn’t allowed. 

“One story. A group of sisters in the Midwest were having their community assembly. Out of courtesy, they invited the bishop. We generally do not invite the bishop because we are such good friends and want to celebrate, but unfortunately – and I feel very sad about this -- we do it because it is expected and out of courtesy. The bishop wrote back and said, it must be in a parish church and not at the motherhouse, you must have altar boys come in to assist me, and no sister may carry the cross at the beginning of the procession. With real regrets, they met as a group, they really prayed about it and decided not to have liturgy. They didn’t want to disinvite the bishop, so they said that their plans had changed. They should have said, we are disinviting you, because so many of us have experienced being disinvited. When anything is a little bit not quite right, we get disinvited. 

“But the real tragedy is that a magnificent opportunity is lost for a bishop to gather with a group of women to worship together. 

“So women of the 21st century have done what we have done down through the ages. We weep. But we have also done other things. The material from FutureChurch shows that we can do something about this. We are creating new liturgies, a new space for ourselves.

 
“As a Catholic woman, I continue to hope. Why? At gatherings such as this for these three days, I hear so many women and women who are so open and want to make this a new church. So I go home having been inspired. I don’t really have a need to run back to traditional worship. There are many organizations that are very much alive, spiritual and Vatican II: Call to Action, Women’s Ordination Conference, Future Church., the congregations of women religious ourselves. In many ways we are a counter organization within an organization. 

“I’ve had women say to me, ‘How do you put up with those bishops?’ 

“I say, ‘To be perfectly honest, I really have very little to do with them. How do you put up with your husband?’ 

“Women still me stories that are shocking. ‘I can’t drive when he is in the car. He still pays all the bills, and I have to get some money from him.’ This goes on on a regular basis. 

“But basically I believe that the congregations of women religious have much more equality and I think that the renewal that took place in our communities brought about that equality. We worked hard at this for many years. I think that alternative communities are worshipping and are also ecumenical, which is a major breakthrough. 

“And finally I get hope from the words of scripture. In the fullness of time God’s purpose will be revealed. The question is, when will the renewal come? In the fullness of time. It may be tomorrow. Maybe next week. But it’s God’s time, not my time. In the fullness of time. I also have the deep conviction that nothing is impossible with God. People will say to me, ‘You can’t do that, it’s not possible.’ With God, all things are possible. And those are the things that give me great hope.” 

For the edited version of Sr. Theresa Kane's talk read 'In the fullness of time, God's purpose will be revealed'. 

For more on the Celebration conference read Meeting urges persistence for church renewal. 

[link=http://ncronline.org/news/sr-theresa-kane-speaks-effective-liturgy-celebration-conference-chicago]

Women Priests Offer Different Approaches to Valid Ordination
by Rosemary Radford Ruether
The National Catholic Reporter
August 10, 2010 


Rosemary Radford Ruether

In 2002 seven Roman Catholic women were ordained in Austria on the Danube River by an independent Catholic bishop, Romulo Antonio Braschi. Later unnamed Roman Catholic bishops ordained some of these women priests as bishops. These women bishops, in turn, have been ordaining other women deacons, priests and bishops. From this beginning there has developed a movement, Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP), which presently claims four women bishops and 45 women priests in the United States, as well as others in Europe and Canada. This movement has shaped a thoughtful ecclesiology defining itself both as in valid succession in the Roman Catholic tradition and also as a valid reform that is reclaiming the authentic discipleship of equals of the earliest church based on the redemptive mission of Christ.(1)


Icon of St. Irenaeus


Rejecting the papal declaration of May 28, 2008, that the women and the male bishops who originally ordained them are "excommunicatedlatae sententiae" (automatically), RCWP declared that "we will continue to serve our beloved church in a renewed priestly ministry that welcomes all to celebrate the sacraments in inclusive, Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered communities wherever we are called." RCWP claims to stand in "apostolic succession" based on the validity of the episcopal ordination of their founding bishop:


The ordinations of Roman Catholic Womenpriests are valid because of our unbroken line of apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church. The principal consecrating Roman Catholic male bishop who ordained our first women bishops is a bishop with a line of unbroken apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope. Therefore, our bishops validly ordain deacons, priests and bishops. Consequently, all qualified candidates, including baptized ministers and priests from other Christian traditions, who are presented to our bishops for ordination are ordained by the laying on of hands into the same line of apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic Church.(2)

Clearly the pope does not agree with this view. For him the women bishops, priests and deacons — as well as the originating bishops — are automatically excommunicated, based on the fact that these ordinations took place against church teaching and without papal approval. Besides this, there is the theological assumption that women by their very nature are incapable of receiving valid ordination as priests in the Roman Catholic Church.(3) (The Vatican mentality toward women was revealed on July 15, 2010, with the release of a document lumping sexual abuse of children by priests and women's ordination as both "very grave crimes.") What then is the concept of "apostolic succession" and "full communion with the pope" that this movement assumes can be unaffected by this profound conflict with papal authority?


Before discussing this issue, let us look at a different approach to valid ordination that has emerged in a faith community in San Diego, Calif., under the leadership of one of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Jane Via. Desiring to create and be a part of a vibrant Catholic community that reflected her vision of what such a community should be, Via, a religious educator and lawyer, developed, with the help of ex-priest Rod Stephens, the Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community (MMACC) in 2005.


For some years Nancy Corran, a woman of Protestant background who holds a degree in theology from Oxford and a Master's of Divinity degree from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., has served with Jane Via and Rod Stephens as a pastoral associate. In 2009 Corran decided that she wanted to become a Catholic in the context of the Mary Magdalene community. The leadership of the Mary Magdalene church decided to call her as a priest to their community. However they decided not to call a bishop from the RCWP movement to come and ordain her, but rather to ordain her as a collective action of their faith community. They based their right to do this on their reading of early church history in which they learned that Christians in the early centuries had called priests and ordained them through the collective action of local faith communities. This ordination of Corran to the deaconate and then to the priesthood by the collective action of MMACC took place July 30 and 31, 2010. Everyone in the community, including the children, laid hands on Corran and signed the official paper as her ordainers.


This decision by MMACC has caused consternation among some in the RCWP movement. Some have even suggested that this action undermines the "apostolic succession" of their movement. By implication the ordination of Corran would be outside of this lineage of "apostolic succession." The emergence of this difference sparks inquiry into the basis of this concept of "apostolic succession" which has become so important for the RCWP movement, and upon which they base the validity of their own ordinations, despite its repudiation by the pope. Why does the leadership of MMACC feel they can disregard this, even though Via was herself ordained in this movement? What does "apostolic succession" as the basis of valid ordination of priests by bishops mean?


This concept of apostolic succession is widely contested. Although claimed by Roman Catholicism, most Protestants, based on historical studies of early Christianity, see this as an historical fiction with little basis in "apostolic" or first century Christianity. In the view of most modern church historians, first and second century Christianity was highly diverse. Christianity manifested itself in several movements that reflected a variety of world views of the time. In many cities of the eastern Mediterranean, such as Alexandria, some of the first Christian groups were Gnostics of various kinds.


According to the gospels, Jesus chose 12 disciples in his life time.(4) After his death, one of them, Judas Iscariot, the traitor of Jesus, was replaced by Matthias by collective action of the remaining 11 disciples (Acts I: 15-26). But these 12 disciples have left little record of evangelizing Gentiles and founding churches around the world. In fact, the original idea of the 12 disciples probably was intended to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, not a group of worldwide founders of churches from which a succession of bishops descended.


The concept of a Gentile church drawn from all nations originated with the evangelizing mission of Paul, himself not a member of Jesus' original disciples, but rather a convert to the Christian movement after Jesus' death. In the story of the spread of Christianity outside Palestine, the names of most of the 12 disciples disappear. The only ones claimed to be related to areas outside Palestine are Peter, associated with Antioch and also with Rome (in death), John in Ephesus, although not as a church founder, and Thomas in India, the last of questionable historicity.(5)


The concept of a monarchical episcopacy; that is, city-based churches headed by a bishop in hierarchical power above elders (presbyters) and deacons, emerged slowly between the late first and early third centuries. Ignatius of Antioch claimed such a monarchical episcopacy for himself in the church of Antioch in letters written in the early 2nd century on his way to martyrdom in Rome, but he makes no mention of Peter as the founding apostle of his church.(6) Irenaeus of Lyons, combating various gnosticisms in his writings Against the Heresies in the late second century, expounds the idea of a succession of teachers that guarantee apostolic teaching versus gnostics. For him the church of Rome is the primary example of such a succession of bishop-teachers. (7)


Several "tools" of orthodoxy emerged in this period. One was a canonical New Testament composed of writings known to be of older tradition and hence as "apostolic." These were seen as distinguishable from the plurality of writings circulating among the churches that used the names of apostles — such as the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Peter and the Revelation of Peter, the Acts of Andrew and the Acts of John — but perceived as heretical in content.(8) A historical lineage of teaching going back to the 1st or early 2nd centuries, guaranteed by a succession of bishop-teachers, was seen as validating this apostolic tradition. These tools emerged in order to separate what was being defined as orthodoxy against the plurality of other traditions of a more gnostic type.


In the process of defining this "apostolic tradition" against the "heresies," writers like Irenaeus constructed an historical argument that posited that what was emerging as "orthodoxy" in the late 2nd century was the original teaching of Jesus and the apostles — while the various other forms of Christianity were decried as later deviations. Modern historians generally have decided that the historical reality was more the opposite of this schema. In other words, many variant Christianities were actually earlier. What was being defined as orthodoxy was a construct that emerged later. The successful purge of this earlier diversity allowed the emerging orthodoxy to claim historical originality.(9)

Hippolytus of Rome

A lineage of bishops descending from founding apostles of leading churches was the key idea in this emerging claim of "apostolic teaching." In this construct the twelve disciples were sent forth around the world, founded churches in key cities with themselves as founding bishops, and gave each church an apostolic teaching that was identical. The succession of bishops descended from the founding apostle carried this same teaching unchanged through the generations. This concept of apostolic succession, with successions of bishop-descendents of founding apostles, bears little basis in the historical reality of how Christianity actually spread, although it was a useful (and doubtless sincerely believed) idea to define an emerging orthodoxy for churches seeking a common front against their rivals.


Rome was an early claimant for this role of guarantor of apostolic teaching, although, interestingly enough, the monarchical bishop appears to have been slow to emerge there. The 2nd century "orthodox" Roman church was one among several Christian groups in the city. But this emerging church maintained into the third century a more collective form of church government in which the bishop was a leading elder, rather than a monarchical bishop in hierarchical relation over the other elders. (10)


A significant document that testifies to the tradition of this Roman church is that of Hippolytus of Rome, a Greek-born presbyter of this church who wrote in the early 3rd century a treatise called The Apostolic Tradition. Hippolytus was a rigorist thinker who sought to exclude various heresies from acceptance. He was briefly elected bishop as a rival to a more lax leader of the church, Callistus, who later tradition defines as "pope" from 217-222 A.D. Hippolytus, writing inThe Apostolic Tradition, reflects his own memory of how things were done in this church back into the mid-second century. Significantly he assumes a collective authority in which the church as a whole or "all the people" together call the bishop. The presbyters and "any bishops who happen to be present" give their consent and lay hands on this leader. Clearly what is understood as the church order of mid-second to early third century Rome is one of collective calling and ordination by the local faith community as a whole.(11) This is the tradition claimed by Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community today.


The notion of the "apostles," that is, the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus, founding churches and inaugurating a succession of monarchical bishops, became formulated in its historical form in the late second and third centuries and appears as a set idea in the History of the Church by Eusebius, who wrote successive versions of this work from 305 to 330 AD. For Eusebius, orthodoxy was guaranteed by apostolic succession through the foundation of churches by apostles and the passing down of identical apostolic teaching through their succession of bishops in each church. Eusebius has many references to bishops of various churches from Asia Minor to Italy, but he can only produce continuous lists from apostolic times to his own time for four leading churches: Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Rome.(12) He has a few partial lists for other churches, such as Corinth, but does not claim apostolic founders for them.


Eusebius of Caesarea 

Careful examination of his lists for the four leading churches raises the question whether any of these were actually founded by one of the 12 apostles. Jerusalem claims as its founding leader, James, the brother of Jesus, who was not a disciple in Jesus' time, but was converted to Christianity after his death. The names of 12 Jewish leaders of this church "of the circumcision" are claimed from the time of James until the Roman destruction of the city in 139 A.D. when this church disappeared. But it is hard to imagine that this extensive list actually represents a succession of monarchical bishops, rather than names of coexisting leaders. When this church disappeared in 139 A.D., a second list of bishops is claimed for a gentile church in a newly founded Roman city near Jerusalem, but one is puzzled about how this list can be seen as continuing the line from James, Jesus brother.


The lineage of Alexandria does not claim an apostle founder but cites Mark, author of the Gospel of that name, as its founder. But the succession of bishops of that city is likely a later construct, as orthodoxy gradually asserted itself against earlier gnosticisms. In Antioch, "where the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts11:26) Peter was apparently present on more than one occasion. Eusebius claims Peter was the first bishop of Antioch, with Ignatius as his second successor,(13) but Ignatius himself seems unaware of this.


Rome, which became the model for the idea of apostolic succession, claims both Peter and Paul as founders. But we know that the church of Rome already existed at the time of Paul's ministry in Greece, when Peter had not been to Rome. Peter may have been martyred there, but did not found the church of Rome and was probably not a leader there, much less a "bishop." So, in each case, the connection of later bishop lists to a supposedly founding apostle fades on examination.


Not only is there a historical gap between apostles and later bishop lists, but also, this original concept of apostolic succession that developed in the late second to fourth centuries did not originally have anything to do with passing down the priestly power to do Eucharist from Jesus to apostles to bishops (who were thereby empowered to ordain other bishops and priests with the charism to do Eucharist). Apostolic succession was originally about apostolic teaching,(14) not priestly power to do Eucharist. It was a way of claiming a unitary form of Christian teaching from Jesus through the apostles for a lineage of bishop-teachers that could be defined across churches against heretics, thus ruling out the earlier diversity of forms of Christianity.


The idea of apostolic succession as a transmission of Eucharistic power from Jesus and the apostles to bishops is a later idea that emerges slowly to replace the earlier emphasis on a lineage of apostolic teaching. It becomes fully developed only in the 12th century when a concept of priesthood is defined based on the power to "confect" the Eucharist (that is, the power to turn the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ), as the central idea of ordination, excluding earlier ideas of ordination based on installation into various offices. This earlier view of ordination as installation into holding offices allowed various people to be seen as ordained, including women as queens, abbesses and deaconesses.


As ordination came to be linked primarily with priesthood and its ability to "confect" the Eucharist the idea of ordination as installation into an office was eliminated and, with it, the possibility of women being ordained. Only men who share Christ's maleness could inherit this power to do Eucharist which was supposedly passed down from Christ himself to his twelve apostles and from them to their bishop-descendents. Thus the triumph of a priestly eucharistic concept of ordination, passed down through apostolic succession, is itself an integral part of a process in which women were eliminated as ordainable.(15)


Ironically, it is this 12th century concept of apostolic succession as the transmission of the power to do Eucharist which is claimed by the RCWP movement as they lift up the episcopal ordination of their founding bishops as proof of the validity of their own ordinations. This concept of valid ordination, transmitted through the apostolic succession from their founding bishops, works only if one implicitly assumes a mechanistic view of the transmission of this power from one bishop to another. In other words, ordination in apostolic succession is assumed to transmit a kind of spiritual power as a personal "possession" which the ordained persons can dispose of as they wish — apart from agreement with the pope as authorizer in the Roman Catholic Church of who can or should be ordained.


This power can then be assumed to continue in force, even allowing the bishop ordaining the women to be described as in "full communion with the pope" despite being excommunicated by the pope. Thus being in "communion" with the pope in this context has nothing to do with being in agreement with the pope on who can be ordained, but rather as possessing this ordaining power as a personal endowment that can be transmitted to others by engaging in the sacramental act of ordaining.


By contrast, the leaders of Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community go back to a much earlier view of church and ordination closer to apostolic times, manifested in Hippolytus' treatise on The Apostolic Tradition. Here ordination has to do with installing a person in an office of teacher and worship leader for a faith community who "all the people" of that community call and ordain collectively.


Does this mean that the MMACC community is "right" in their views, and the RCWP should abandon their faulty claims to apostolic succession? This is not the point. Rather both movements can recognize their common ground on which both can claim the validity of their divergent forms of ordination. This common ground lies in a history and tradition of Christian churches as faith communities linked to the past through memory and through constant imaginative efforts to reconstruct what is most life-giving in their traditions and to base themselves on faithful reproduction of that life-giving tradition. RCWP and MMACC are both seeking to be "apostolic" in their thinking and living through different versions of that process.


----------------------------------------------------------------
(1) "Ordinations," romancatholicwomenpriests.org
(2) Ibid.
(3) This view of women's incapacity to be ordained due to the defective nature of femaleness was developed by Thomas Aquinas, based on Aristotelian anthropology. See Kari Borreson, Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Women in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981), pp. 236-239.
(4) The lists of 12 apostles are found in Matthew 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16. Acts 1:13 contains eleven names, dropping Judas Iscariot. The lists are not fully consistent. Matthew and Mark list a Thaddeus. Luke and Acts lack this name, but have Jude, son of James instead.
(5) See the Wikipedia articles on "John the Apostle" and "Thomas the Apostle."
(6) See The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Gerald G. Walsh, trans. The Apostolic Fathers, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 1 (NY: CIMA Publishing Company, 1947), pp. 83-127.
(7) Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, III.3,23
(8) See Harry Y. Gamble, The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).
(9) The scholar whose work helped establish this view is Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971).
(10) See Kurt Aland, A History of Christianity, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 120.
(11) The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, Burton Scott Easton, trans. (Archon Books,1962).
(12) Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, G.A. Williamson, trans. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1965) appendix, pp. 415-17.
(13) Ibid., p. 145 (Book III.36)
(14) See Irenaeus, op.cit., who refers to the succession of bishops at Rome as teachers who all agreed in teaching "right doctrine," offering no "secret teaching."
(15) For a key book showing the development of this kind of view of ordination and the suppression of earlier forms of ordination that included women, see Gary Macy, The Hidden History of Women's Ordination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

http://ncronline.org/news/women/women-priests-offer-differing-approaches-valid-ordination

Monks Mother Calls on Women to Join One Day Boycott of Mass
by Patsy McGarry
Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
August 11, 2010 

 
AN 80-YEAR-OLD woman is organising a one-day boycott of Sunday Mass “by the faithful women of Ireland” next month. 

 
Jennifer Sleeman from Clonakilty in Cork said she wants “to let the Vatican and the Irish church know that women are tired of being treated as second-class citizens”.  

 
She has called on the Catholic women of Ireland to “join your sisters on Sunday, September 26th. On that one day boycott Mass. Stay at home and pray for change. We are the majority. We may have been protesting individually but unremarked on, but together we have strength and our absence, the empty pews, will be noticed”.  

 
She said: “Whatever change you long for, recognition, ordination, the end of celibacy, which is another means of keeping women out, join with your sisters and let the hierarchy know by your absence that the days of an exclusively male-dominated church are over.”  

 
She told The Irish Times she had chosen the date of September 26th as her 81st birthday was three days previously, on the 23rd.  

 
She said she looks at her “children and grandchildren and see no future for the Catholic Church. Some of the grandchildren go through the rites of sacraments but seldom, if ever, visit a church afterwards. Some of my children are actively looking for a meaningful spiritual life but they do not find it in the Catholic Church.” But, she said, “I must except my eldest son who is a monk in Glenstal Abbey, another place that helps me keep some shreds of faith.”  

 
She noted her son, Fr Simon, was supportive of her in her action. 

Over recent Sundays, Ms Sleeman had been to the Church of Ireland in Clonakilty, to Mass in Knocknaheeney, and back to the Catholic Church in Clonakilty. “I felt so welcome in the first two and just wondered what I was doing in ‘my own church’ [Clonakilty] ,” she said.

“Since then I have been to the celebration of the Methodist Church’s 150 years in Clonakilty, another joyful and welcoming occasion.” 


A former Presbyterian who converted to Catholicism 54 years ago, she said: “I am not a cradle Catholic. I chose to join as an adult helped by meeting a wonderful priest . . . but I now wonder did I do the right thing?” She has found that “somehow I have grown up but the church has not”. 

The sexual abuse scandals “horrified me. I find I belong to an organisation that seems caught in a time warp, run by old celibate men divorced from the realities of life, with a lonely priesthood struggling with the burden of celibacy where rules and regulations have more weight than the original message of community and love”. 

http://www.irishtimes.com...811/1224276549321.html

Wanted: Women of Spirit in Our Own Time
By Joan Chittister
National Catholic Reporter
August 11, 2010
 

Joan Chittister, osb
 
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is meeting in Dallas this week under scrutiny from Rome and with a cloud hanging over its head.
 
What shall we think about such a time as this when the women religious who have built, carried, led and staffed every work of the church from the earliest days of this nation to this present time of turbulence and transition are being accused of being unorthodox, unfaithful, and unfit to make adult decisions about what they need to hear and who they want to have say it?
 
The problem is that in the face of opposition they have also been unafraid.
 
What shall we think about that? Think David, maybe, who confronted the giant Goliath; think Moses, perhaps, who faced the Red Sea with an Egyptian army at his back; think Judith and her handmaiden, certainly, who routed Holofernes and saved the city; think Shifra and Puah, without doubt, who refused the order to murder Jewish newborns and so saved the nation. Think Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala who stood as independent women alone and unblinking. Think moment of decision.
 
Then think of the foundresses of every religious order you have ever known who came to the United States without money, without professional resources, often without the language, and commonly without support — even from the church — to deal head on with the social justice questions of their time and so saved the church in the process.
 
"Women & Spirit," the traveling museum exhibit mounted by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that reviews the story of women's religious communities in the United States, bears witness to the role of religious life in church and society. It is the visual history of women who made astounding choices at all the crossroads in national history and made them when women were allowed to make few, if any, choices at all.
 
It is a story too often forgotten and too easily domesticated. "That's just what sisters were supposed to be doing," people say. Oh, please.
 
These were women who opened schools for girls in a world that considered the education of women a useless and uppity waste.
 
These were women who nursed soldiers on both battlefields of the Civil War, North and South, in an age when sisters didn't work with men at all, let alone nurse them.
 
These were women who worked with what was left of a Native American society that had been stripped of its dignity, robbed of its lands and denied its civil rights in a culture that defined both the American Indian and the women who served them as less than fully human.
 
These were women who taught blacks for centuries and then walked with them in Selma, Ala., to claim their full humanity — attack dogs at their heels, fire hoses in front of them -- and met disdain everywhere from Christians who used religion to justify first slavery and, after it, segregation.
 
These were women who gave their lives to insert Catholic children into a Protestant society as equal participants in the democratic dream all the way to a Catholic presidency.
 
Indeed, for hundreds of years, over and over again, women religious have found themselves at the junction between past and future. For hundreds of years they have consistently, persistently, confidently and courageously chosen for a necessary future — whatever difficulties the doing of it meant for them in the present. Over and over again, they chose for tomorrow rather than settle for a more convenient past.
 
The entire history of religious life in this nation has been a history of crisis and response, of need and resistance, of response and reaction.
 
It was not an easy time.
 
At a time when the sick died uncared for, and the uneducated died illiterate and the poor or addicted died destitute and minorities died invisible to the rest of society, women religious chose to challenge any and every system for the sake of the coming of the reign of God.
And in the end, they succeeded. But don't be fooled: They did not succeed because their numbers were large or their influence was great or their social support was either broad-based or obvious. They succeeded because they refused to allow the ideas of the past to become the cement of the future. They succeeded because of the courage of women who went where they were told not to go.
 
Now we are at another crossroads moment in time. This is a time, too, of deep crisis and great needs, of the rejection of those who raise new questions and a reaction against those who raise new ideas in a system trying to preserve the old ones in order to preserve itself.
It is a time, as it has always been, for leadership.
 
But leadership and authority are not the same thing. It can take a long time to learn the difference between the two but there is nothing in life that demonstrates the difference between the two better than a crossroad.
 
At the crossroads in life, authority goes one direction: back. Authority goes in the direction that's already in the book; the path that has been clearly trod before now, the way that is safe and sure, clear and certain, obedient and approved, applauded and rewarded.
 
Leadership, on the other hand, rewrites the book. It takes the direction that leads only to the promise of a better tomorrow for everyone however difficult it may be to achieve it now. "The seed," the Zen master teaches, "never sees the flower."
 
The times are clear. The needs are now. The time for new decisions is upon us. Authority is not enough for times such as these. We need leaders now.
 
As women religious meet in Dallas these days as a "Leadership Conference" rather than as a conference of "Major Superiors," may God raise up women among them who will lead.
 
It is a new period of crisis. We must determine to meet this challenge to spiritual maturity, to human adulthood now as did our foremothers before us meet theirs. We, too, must move beyond fear to the real, real faith that can, we have seen, move mountains.
 
It is another period in which public and even ecclesiastical approval must be second again to the needs of those who look to us for both vision and voice.
 
It is a period in which we must not forego reaching for what is necessary because others tell us it is not acceptable.
 
For the sake of religious life, for the sake of women everywhere, and, in the end, for the sake of the very integrity of the church itself, we are looking to you now to be "Women of Spirit." May we be to our age what our ancestors were to theirs. Whatever the cost to ourselves.
 
For that, we are depending now on you.
 
[Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister is a frequent NCR contributor.]
 
* * *
 
Coverage Note: NCR editor Tom Fox is in Dallas for the LCWR meeting. Read his dispatches from Dallas on the NCR Today blog and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ncrtomfox and twitter.com/NCRonline. If you are tweeting from the meeting include #LCWR in your tweets.
 
http://ncronline.org/news/women/wanted-women-spirit-our-own-time

Popes of the 20th century
by Richard McBrien
The National Catholic Reporter
August 09, 2010
 

Richard McBrien
 
When I was a lot younger, we assumed that all popes, with the exception of the infamous Alexander VI, were great popes, like the ones who reigned during the 20th century.
 
Leo XIII, who died in 1903 after a 25-year pontificate, was known to us as the author of the landmark social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, in 1891. We didn't know much else about him, particularly his ten encyclicals on the Rosary, his efforts to recover the Papal States, or his declaration in 1896 that Anglican orders were "absolutely null and utterly void."
 
We knew that Pope Pius X was a canonized saint, but what we didn't know was that he had waged an often cruel campaign against Catholic theologians, biblical scholars, and church historians, lumping them all under the umbrella of Modernism -- a campaign from which the Catholic Church did not begin to recover until the pontificate of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council a half-century later.
 
We also knew nothing of the pope's refusal in 1910 to grant an audience to ex-President Theodore Roosevelt because Mr. Roosevelt was scheduled to speak at the Methodist church in Rome, or his disapproval of trade unions that were not exclusively Catholic.
. . .
 
For complete article, see here:  Papal History

Short Take The Scandal of Secrecy  
Canon Law & the Sexual-abuse Crisis  
by Nicholas P. Cafardi  
Commonweal 
August 13, 2010 
  
According to Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, in the first century AD the Roman emperor Caligula "wrote his laws in a very small character, and hung them upon high pillars, the more effectually to ensnare the people." Twelve centuries after Caligula, Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologiae that "promulgation is necessary if a law is to have binding force." Secret laws-laws never made known to the people who are bound by them-are not effective laws.  

 
Nicolas P. Carfardi 

To no small degree, the sexual-abuse crisis has been exacerbated because of secret laws. In 1922, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office published the instruction "On the Method of Proceeding in Cases of Solicitation," which was approved by Pius XI and signed by Merry del Val, cardinal secretary of the Holy Office. The Vatican's Polyglot Press printed the document, but it was never officially promulgated in a useful way. In fact, the first page of the instruction says it is to be "diligently kept in the secret archives of the [diocesan] curia for internal use, and is not to be published or commented on in any canonical commentary."While the instruction is addressed to "All Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Other Local Ordinaries, including of the Oriental Rites," it was evidently not circulated to them. Instead, the text was available by request to bishops who needed to know its contents to deal with such crimes.  
. . .  
 
Read complete article, click here: Abuse of Authority?

Women Challenge Gender Apartheid in the Catholic Church  
by Angela Bonavoglia   
On The Issues Magazine: A Magazine of Critical Independent Thinking  
Summer 2010   

  
Angela Bonavoglia  

If ever there were doubt about the relationship between the Catholic Church's spectacular failure to address the clerical child sex abuse crisis and the church's glaring system of gender apartheid, the Vatican put it to rest in July. Engendering a firestorm of criticism, their new canonical guidelines for handling and punishing the most "grave crimes" in church law revealed just how enraged the hierarchy is at women who dare to challenge them. Along with the crimes of sexually molesting children and developmentally disabled adults, and of using and distributing pornography, the Vatican listed: "the attempted sacred ordination of a woman."   

In other words, the two greatest problems the Catholic hierarchy faces are women and children.  

. . .

Read complete article, click here: Speaking Out

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On this day August 17 in 1962:  GDR border guards kill 18-year-old as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall.
 
Things do change.

Women Take on Gender Apartheid in the Catholic Church 
by Angela Bonavoglia 
The Huffington Post 
August 16, 2010  
 
Angela Bonavoglia  

If doubts remained about the relationship between the Catholic Church's spectacular failure to address the clerical child sex abuse crisis and the church's glaring system of gender apartheid, the Vatican put them to rest in July. Engendering a firestorm of criticism, their new canonical guidelines for handling and punishing the most "grave crimes" in church law revealed just how enraged the hierarchy is at women who dare to challenge them. Along with the crimes of sexually molesting children and developmentally disabled adults, and of using and distributing pornography, the Vatican listed "the attempted sacred ordination of a woman."  


. . .


Read complete article, see here: Speaking Out

A Perspective About the Issue of Gender from a Former Southern Baptist... 

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Formation of Gender Identity in the Church 
by Rev. Rebecca Turner 
On the Issues Magazine 

Growing up in a small Missouri town Southern Baptist church in the 1960s, I recall very little being said about sex, sexuality, and gender. We didn't have sex education of any kind in my church. But I do remember that every pastor was a man. Every deacon was a man. Every greeter, usher, and offering collector was a man. Every person who read the scripture in church, who directed the choir, who was in any way participating in worship leadership was a man. 


As a little girl I knew without being told that men made all of the decisions for the church -- all I had to do was look around. Men were the ones granted the religious authority to interpret the scriptures and make moral decisions. Women could cook, clean, play the piano, sing, and teach children in Sunday School. But once children reached the 5th grade, classes were divided by gender -- men taught the boys and men; women taught girls and women. Women made up at least two-thirds of the people sitting in the pews. They were the ones being "preached at" but they clearly were not the ones in charge. 


. . .

Read the complete article, click here: Speaking Out!

Dear friends,

We have adopted a new brand for use with some of our promotional material and our Facebook Page.



Inspiration for our new logo was found in St. Augustine's writings about hope. 'Hope,' he said, 'has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.' It beautifully sums up the spirit of our work! As the woman, a labourer in the field reaches out for the sun, she personifies our reaching out for Christ who is our Light!      

 
Let us know what you think!

with love and blessings,

~Sophie~

Excommunicate Me, Please! 
The Chicago Tribune 
August 4, 2010 

 
Justice Sheila O'Brien 

Would someone in Rome formally excommunicate me, please? I want to be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because walking away will break my heart. 

My grandparents left Ireland with nothing but their vibrant faith. They and my parents brought my siblings and me to a baptismal font and promised to guide us to Christ. And, they did that by word and deed. They taught us to love the Gospel and challenged us to live that Gospel at all costs. I love the Mass, Catholic social teaching, the scores of nuns who built the church around the world, the dedicated priests and people who love God with all their hearts and bring that love to the world. It is my life, the center of every experience, the filter for reality. 

. . .  Read complete article, click here: Speaking Out

Sex Abuse Critic to Pope: Swap White Cassock for Black, Lose the Red Shoes 
by David Gibson, Religion Reporter 
Politics Daily 
August 1, 2010 

 
David Gibson 

Before this year, when Pope Benedict XVI became best-known for his questionable record in dealing with the sexual abuse of children by priests, the pontiff often made headlines for his fastidious attention to high-end clerical fashion.  

Soon after his election in 2005, for example, Benedict rummaged through the papal attic for ornate gold vestments last worn during the Renaissance, and he resurrected a 19th-century liturgical cape so wide is must be held up by two attendants. Benedict has taken to wearing ermine-trimmed capes and hats, as well -- to the chagrin of animal rights activists -- and he even commissioned a set of 30 new vestments modeled on those worn by the notorious Medici pope, Leo X, who at his election famously declared, "Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us." 


. . . Read complete article, click here: Pope Benedict

Women Faith Leaders Struggle to Make It To the Top 
broadcast on NPR July 16, 2010  

Women have long fought to shatter the so-called "glass ceiling" in society and culture at large yet in matters of faith and religion, similar gains aren't always realized. Host Michel Martin talks with Maureen Fiedler, author of "Breaking through the Stained Glass Ceiling: Women Religious Leaders in Their Own Words," about where the female faithful are going in their quest for equality in churches, mosques and temples.   

Listen to the podcast here: Women Faith Leaders Struggle to Make It to the Top 

Read the transcript here:  Speaking Out!

Women's Council Seeks Justice for Magdalene Survivors
by Patsy McGarry
The Irish Times
July 12, 2010
 
THE NATIONAL Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) is to write to all female TDs, Senators, and local councillors calling on them to support calls for justice for survivors of the Magdalene laundries.
 

 
 
 
Susan McKay, director of the NWCI, has written to the women public representatives reminding them that "justice must be done and a clear and resounding message must emanate from Government that the treatment of these women and their children was a severe violation of their human rights".
 
According to a statement yesterday from the Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) group, the NWCI passed a motion at its recent annual general meeting supporting the JFM campaign to bring about a formal apology and a distinct redress scheme for all Magdalene survivors.
 
 
Mari Steed of JFM said they were pleased to receive NWCI support "to correct a historic injustice, one that targeted women and young girls exclusively".
 
 
Ms McKay said the NWCI "stands firmly behind those seeking justice for women incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries and supports their call for the establishment of a distinct redress scheme for Magdalene survivors."
 
 
Over recent weeks the JFM campaign has received the encouragement of the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady while cross-party TDs, including those in Government, have tabled six separate parliamentary questions on the issue of justice for the Magdalene women.
 
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0712/1224274513747.html

Meeting to Consider New Priest's Association
by Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
July 28, 2010
 
A MEETING of Catholic priests to consider setting up an association of Irish priests is to take place in Portlaoise on September 15th next.
 
The initiative follows an informal gathering in Athlone recently of about nine Catholic priests representing those in dioceses, religious orders/ congregations and missionary societies.
 
A statement yesterday said that at the Athlone meeting those priests present discussed the possibility of encouraging a public voice for Catholic priests in Ireland.
 
It was agreed there was a need for such a coherent voice “in light of the increasingly strained relationship between priests and their bishops” and what was described as “the debilitating reality that, without a platform to express their views, priests find themselves unable to represent their own perspective on issues pertinent to priesthood, church and society today”.
 
The consensus at the meeting was that, “due to the diversity of opinion among priests, it would be impossible to represent all clergy”.
 
Three priests at the meeting were asked to draft a set of aims or guidelines for the proposed association. They have done so.
 
Their draft proposals include “the importance of looking seriously at the ministry, government and sexual teaching of the church” and “a concern for social justice and God’s creation.”
 
Those interested may contact Fr Brendan Hoban at 086-6065055, Fr Tony Flannery at 087-6814699, and/or Fr Seán McDonagh at 087-2367612.
 
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0728/1224275616045.html

 
 
 
Mass Boycott Call Gathers Pace
by Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
August 14, 2010
 
JENNIFER SLEEMAN (80) from Clonakilty in Cork is “absolutely astonished” by reaction to her call on women to take part in a one-day boycott of Sunday Mass next month in protest at the Catholic Church’s treatment of women and its response to abuse scandals.
 
“There is no doubt it has taken the lid off something,” she said last night.
 
The great majority of those who contacted her were positive, “with the odd nasty one”. Media interest was such that, surfing the net this past few days, her granddaughter had said: “You’re taking it [the internet] over, Grandma.” 
 
. . . Read complete article, click here: Mass Boycott Call Gathers Pace

 
 
 
 
Call to Boycott Mass May Be the Start of a Revolution in the Catholic Church
by PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
August 20, 2010
 
A REVOLUTION “may already have started” in the Catholic Church in Ireland, the Humbert Summer School was told in Castlebar, Co Mayo, last night.
 
US religion commentator Robert Blair Kaiser said in the keynote address that news reports last week of 80-year-old Jennifer Sleeman’s call for a boycott of Sunday Mass on September 26th in protest at the Vatican’s treatment of women suggested that “this grandmother from Cork” may “already have started a revolution”.
 
“She obviously believes what I believe, that you can have a voice and a vote in your own church, and still be Catholic and, at the same time, Irish,” he said.
 
. . . Read complete article, click here:  Call to Boycott Mass May Be Start of Revolution in the Catholic Church

Women Can Be Priests: 


Reason No. 1: Both Women and Men Were Present at the Last Supper.

  
The Eucharist - He Qi  
 
From the Vatican's point of view, one of the its compelling arguments -- so it says -- that justifies  the ban against women priests is the example of Jesus:

he chose only 12 male apostles

only men were present at the Last Supper. The Vatican's argument is that because it is there that he instituted the Eucharist, ordination can only be for men.

Is this true? Is insisting that there were only 12 male apostles present at the Last Supper consistent with scripture? Is it consistent with teaching of the Church?  

The answer quite simply is a definite No!


The truth is that the common and constant teaching of the church --found in scripture and the church’s liturgical tradition -- is that both disciples and apostles of Jesus gathered together at the Last Supper. Moreover, it is clear that some of those disciples were women! Women and men were both present at the Last Supper!

When Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, he wanted to remain present in his community for all time to come. With them he would continue to give thanks to God through the sacramental signs of bread and wine.

His words: 'Do this in memory of me,' have been understood as empowering his disciples to celebrate the Eucharist in his name. 

The Council of Trent affirms this: Through the words ‘Do this in commemoration of me!’, Christ established the apostles as priests and ordained that they and other priests should offer his body and blood. This is what the Church has always taught. (1562 AD; Denz. no 1740, 1752)


The Last Supper - Leonardo da Vinci 


In the Middle Ages everyone took for granted that only men were present at the Last Supper. This is what Leonardo da Vinci depicted in his famous painting.* The famed theologian Durandus a Saint-Pourçain (1270 - 1334 AD) even wrote: 'Christ ordained only men in the supper when he bestowed the power of consecrating.'

But is this true? Were there no women there?

We know that the Last Supper was a Paschal meal. We know that Jesus had it prepared as a Passover with his disciples. 'I have longed to eat this Passover with you.' Luke 22,7-16

We also know from the Gospels that women always took part in Jesus’ community meals. It was one way for him to express the new reality of God’s Kingdom. 


The Passover Meal

And we also know that the Passover Meal was for the whole family --including women. Friends and family always take part in the Paschal meal (Exodus 12,1-14). It would be contrary to tradition to exclude women and children. 


When the Gospels mention the arrival of Jesus and the Twelve in the evening (Mark 14,17), they also tell us about the other disciples who were present -- even some who prepared the meal. Women would have been among the number. 

Given all this, we can be sure Jesus’ mother and the women disciples were present at the Last Supper.

It is to all disciples --women and men-- that Jesus said: 

'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” (Matthew 26,26-28; 1 Corinthians 11,23-25). 

Jesus words, 'Do this in memory of me!' were addressed to all the disciples, men and women. He thus empowered all of them to preside at the Eucharist.

For more about this, see this articles in our free online library:

Marjorie Reiley Maguire's Bible, Liturgy Concur: Women Were There

Suzanne Tunc's Meals of the Community 

Dr. Mary T. Malone The Last Supper and Women.  See the video clip embedded in last picture of Christ on the page.

In other words, Women can be Priests!

Visit the section of our virtual library devoted to The Last Supper and Women.  Learn about its impact on the case for women's ordination.


Women Can Be Priests!
www.womenpriests.org

Contact:

Therese Koturbash 
International Coordinator
womenpriests.org 
111a High Street 
Rickmansworth 
Herts. UK 
WD3 1AN 

t: +44(-0)1923 779 446 
e: koturbash@btconnect.com 

Support our work by becoming a member.  
Click here to sign up:  I want to become a member of womenpriests.org!

'A custom without truth is merely ancient error.'
~St. Cyprian~


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*Notes about Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting

da Vinci's The Last Supper reinforces traditional interpretations which say that the event was a memorable meal shared only by men. 

For many Christians, the masterpiece is the clearest image they have of Christ's last meal with his disciples. 

The fact that it is great art perhaps explains how an artistic interpretation can serve to reinforce inaccuracies and assumptions made about the actual event. Thanks to work of scripture scholars and historians, we now know that the Vatican has a problem when it attempts to gird the ban against women priests by arguing, 'There were no women present.'

Stunning art though the painting is, da Vinci's painting should not be mistaken for an accurate account of history. Examination of details show inaccuracies da Vinci's masterful rendition of the Holy meal. For instance:  

The painting shows daylight outside the window. The Last Supper took place at night

The figures are shown seated on benches at a table. Jesus and his disciples would have reclined on couches.

Da Vinci shows a meal of fish and ordinary bread yet a Passover meal consists of unleavened bread, roast lamb and bitter herb.

Da Vinci shows only Jesus and the twelve apostles, omitting women and children. In fact, the Passover was a meal shared by whole families including women and children. The laws of Passover require children to ask questions so that they can learn the meaning of the Passover meal from their parents.

According to scripture, participants in the meal also included the disciples who prepared the meal during the day. Da Vinci does not show these people.

Da Vinci shows thirteen Renaissance Italian males in oriental costume in a Florentine palace, not a Jewish celebration of the Passover in Palestine.

While these features do not detract from the painting -- it is after all an artistic interpretation of an event -- nonetheless, it should not be confused with the actual event.    

'A custom without truth is merely ancient error.'
~St. Cyprian~   

Please support our work!

Now more than ever, we need your financial support to keep going with this work. Donate to our work as you can (see Donate button left). Become a Member. Sign up for our newsletter. Encourage your friends to join us. Membership is a modest £12 a year. £60 qualifies you as a Friend. Your financial help is critical if we are to keep going. Together, we are making a gift for our Church become reality. In hope we struggle!


In Christ's peace,
oremus pro invicem!


The Team at womenpriests.org

Today August 23 is the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition

August 23 of each year, the day designated by UNESCO to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade. The date is significant because, during the night of August 22 to August 23, 1791 on the island of Saint Domingue (now known as Haiti), an uprising began which set forth events which were a major factor in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. 



 
UNESCO Member States organize events every year on that date, inviting participation from young people, educators, artists and intellectuals. As part of the goals of the intercultural UNESCO project, "The Slave Route", it is an opportunity for collective recognition and focus on the "historic causes, the methods and the consequences" of slavery. Additionally, it sets the stage for analysis and dialogue of the interactions which gave rise to the transatlantic trade in human beings between Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. 

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was first celebrated in a number of countries, in particular in Haiti (23 August 1998) and Senegal (23 August 1999). A number of cultural events and debates were organized. In 2001 the Mulhouse Textile Museum in France conducted a fabric workshop entitled "Indiennes de Traite" (a type of calico) used as currency in trade for Africans. The International Slavery Museum opened its doors on August 23, 2007 in Liverpool where Slavery Remembrance Day events have been conducted since 2004.

Dear friends 

If you are new to www.womenpriests.org, you will soon learn that the issue of slavery gets a fair bit of press from time to time in our discussions. Anticipating that you will be questioning 'why?' and wondering 'what is the connection between slavery and women's ordination?', the short answer is this. Defenders of the Vatican ban against women's ordination argue that: 

"This is the way it has always been."  The ban has consistently been part of Church teaching.     the Vatican does not make mistakes.

At first blush, these might seem like good points. But, when we equip ourselves with information, we will recognise the facts as these. Historical record shows that the Vatican does not always get things 'right' on first strike. As we -- including men in the Vatican -- gain deeper clarity in Christ's truth, as consciences become illuminated by Christ's light and as we are able to see more clearly, we know there are many instances where Church teachings have necessarily evolved and transformed so as to bring our faith community into closer communion with Christ. 

The Vatican's record on teachings about slavery provides one example of the kind of evolution I write about. Throughout most of our ecclesiastical history, the Vatican taught clearly that slavery was in accord with both divine and natural law. Were it not for the courage of abolitionists who laboured to bring about transformation in teaching and law in both Church and society, the institution of slavery might still well be thriving. 

We know that society in general adapted more quickly than did the Church in condemning the practice of slavery.  For instance, the British House of Commons passed 'The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act on March 25, 1807. The nation of Cuba banned slavery as early as 1824, and in 1837, American abolitionist, Elijah P. Lovejoy became a martyr for the cause when a pro-slavery mob burned down a warehouse where his printing press was housed.  

 
Wood engraving of the pro-slavery mob burning down the warehouse 
where American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper 
editor and abolitionist, Elijah P. Lovejoy, kept his printing press. 
Lovejoy was murdered -- martyred -- by the mob.  
  
And the Vatican? Was it working to abolish slavery? In 1866, Rome was still positively endorsing slavery as justifiable in the eyes of God. Historical record tells us that in: 

1866 AD: The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons … It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given".

Thanks to an evolution of understanding of Truth, today the Vatican categorically condemns slavery as an offense to human dignity. 

Application to the case for women's ordination: In the same way -- through an evolution of understanding of Truth -- we are learning that the exclusion of women from priesthood is not of God. Exclusion, like slavery, constitutes a serious error on the part of teaching authority. The exclusion of women is offensive to human dignity. 

Documentation included in our library makes clear that slavery is not the only example where an evolution in understanding thus a change in Church teaching has occurred. I invite you to consider the following links: 

• serious mistakes  
• 65 Church teachings once held to be authoritive and which have now changed! 
• Culture Shift 
• The Facts 
• Lessons from History 
• The Dynamics of Change

Because our Church shows its capacity to embrace necessary evolutions in teachings so as to journey in closer communion with Christ's Truth, it has the capacity to move forward with teachings about women priests, too! While Truth never changes, the attempt to defend the exclusion of women from Holy Orders on the basis that 'this is the way it always has been' is like a last ditch kitchen sink argument. It is neither convincing nor sound. 

We will learn more as we journey together. If you have any questions at any time, please let me know. 

with love and blessings, 

~Sophie~

Pope Pius IX surrounded by Clergy  

In 1866 Pope Pius IX declares: 

Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons. It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.

 
Abolishing slavery

Timeline: World Response to Slavery 
  
Early timeline  
  
Note that many of these changes were reversed in practice over the succeeding centuries.  

• 1102 - Trade in slaves and serfdom ruled illegal in London: Council of Westminster  
• 1117 - Slavery abolished in Iceland  
• 1215 - Magna Carta recognizes the right to liberty in England  
• 1274 - Landslova (Land's Law) in Norway mentions only former slaves, which indicates that slavery was abolished in Norway  
• 1335 - Sweden and Finland make slavery illegal 

Modern timeline  

• 1588 - Lithuania and Japan abolish slavery  
• 1600 - Last villein dies in England  
• 1723 - Russia abolishes slavery  
• 1761 - Portugual abolishes slavery  
• 1772 - Slavery declared illegal in England, including overseas slaves living in England. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield rules that English law does not support slavery.  
• 1777 - Slavery abolished in Madeira  
• 1777 - Slavery abolished in Vermont, USA  
• 1778 - Slavery illegal in Scotland  
• 1783 - Russia abolishes slavery in Crimean Khanate  
• 1783 - Massachusetts rules slavery illegal based on 1780 constitution  
• 1783 - Bukovina: Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor issued an order abolishing slavery on June 19, 1783 in Czernowitz  
• 1787 - Sierra Leone founded by British as state for emancipated slaves  
• 1787 - Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in Britain  
• 1788 - Sir William Dolben's Act regulating the conditions on British slave ships enacted  
• 1791 - Haiti gains independence and emancipation  
• 1792 - Slave trading abolished in Denmark (though slavery continues to 1847).  
• 1794 - Upper Canada, by Act Against Slavery  
• 1794 - French First Republic abolishes slavery (re-established by Napoleon in 1802)  
• 1799 - New York State introduces gradual emancipation  
• 1802 - Denmark abolishes slave trade in Danish colonies  
• 1802 - Slavery re-introduced in France  
• 1803 - Lower Canada abolishes slavery  
• 1804 - Haiti abolishes slavery  
• 1807 - Abolition of the Slave Trade Act: slave trading abolished in British Empire. Captains fined £100 per slave transported.  
• 1807 British begin patrols of African coast to arrest slaving vessels. West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) established to suppress slave trading; by 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations  
• 1807 - Abolition in Prussia, Germany - The Stein-Hardenberg Reforms.  
• 1808 - United States -- importation of slaves into the US prohibited after Jan. 1.  
• 1811 - Slave trading made a felony in the British Empire punishable by transportation for British subjects and Foreigners. 
• 1811 - Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo  
• 1814 - Dutch outlaw slave trade  
• 1815 - British pay Portuguese £750,000 (several hundred million dollars in current values) to cease their trade  
• 1815 - Congress of Vienna. 8 Victorious powers declared their opposition to slavery  
• 1817 - Spain paid £400,000 by British to cease trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo  
• 1818 - Treaty between Britain and Spain to abolish slave trade  
• 1818 - Treaty between Britain and Portugual to abolish slave trade   
• 1818 - France and Holland abolish slave trading  
• 1819 - Treaty between Britain and Netherlands to abolish slave trade   
• 1821 - Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela abolish slavery  
• 1821 - Liberia founded by USA as state for emancipated slaves.  
• 1822 - Greece abolishes slavery.  
• 1823 - Chile abolishes slavery  
• 1827 - Treaty between Britain and Sweden to abolish slave trade   
• 1829 - Mexico abolishes slavery  
• 1831 - Bolivia abolishes slavery  
• 1834 - The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. The exceptions being territories controlled by the Honourable East India Company and the islands of Ceylon and St. Helena.  
• 1834 - Jamaica abolishes slavery  
• 1835 - Treaty between Britain and France to abolish slave trade   
• 1835 - Treaty between Britain and France and Denmark to abolish slave trade   
• 1836 - Portugual abolishes transatlantic slave trade  
• 1839 - British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society founded, now called Anti-Slavery International  
• 1839 - Indian indenture system made illegal 
• 1840 - Treaty between Britain and Venezuela to abolish slave trade   
• 1841 - Quintuple Treaty is signed.  England, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria agree to suppress slave trade  
• 1842 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty between Britain and USA  
• 1842 - Uruguay abolishes slavery  
• 1843 - Honourable East India Company becomes increasingly controlled by Britain and abolishes slavery in India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843.  
• 1843 - Treaty between Britain and Uruguay to suppress slave trade  
• 1843 - Treaty between Britain and Mexico to suppress slave trade  
• 1843 - Treaty between Britain and Chile to suppress slave trade   
• 1843 - Argentina abolishes slavery  
• 1843 - Treaty between Britain and Bolivia to abolish slave trade   
• 1845 - 36 British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.  
• 1846 - Tunisia abolishes slavery  
• 1847 - Sweden abolishes slavery  
• 1848 - Denmark abolishes slavery  
• 1848 - Slavery abolished in all French and Danish colonies  
• 1848 - France founds Gabon for settlement of emancipated slaves.  
• 1848 - Treaty between Britain and Muscat to suppress slave trade  
• 1849 - Treaty between Britain and Persian Gulf states to suppress slave trade   
• 1850 - United States: Fugitive Slave Law of 1850  
• 1851 - Brazil ends slave trade  
• 1854 - Peru abolishes slavery  
• 1854 - Venezuela abolishes slavery  
• 1855 - Moldavia abolishes slavery  
• 1856 - Wallachia abolishes slavery  
• 1860 - Indenture system abolished in British occupied India  
• 1861 - Russia frees its serfs in the Emancipation reform of 1861.  
• 1862 - Treaty between United States and Britain for the suppression of the slave trade (African Slave Trade Treaty Act)  
• 1862 - Cuba abolishes slave trade  
• 1863 - Slavery abolished in Dutch colonies  
• 1863 - United States:Emancipation Proclamation declares those slaves in Confederate-controlled areas to be freed.  
• 1865 - United States abolishes slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution  
• 1869 - Portugual abolishes slavery in the African colonies  
• 1871 - Brazil declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers after September 28, 1871.  
• 1873 - Puerto Rico abolishes slavery  
• 1873 - Treaty between Britain and Zanzibar and Madagascar to suppress slave trade  
• 1874 - Britain abolishes slavery in Ghana (the Gold Coast) (after Third Anglo-Asante War and British annexation of the Gold Coast in 1874)  
• 1886 - Cuba abolishes slavery  
• 1888 - Brazil abolishes slavery  
• 1890 - Brussels Act - Treaty granting anti-slavery powers the right to stop and search ships for slaves  
• 1894 - Korea abolishes slavery  
• 1896 - France abolishes slavery in Madagascar  
• 1897 - Zanzibar abolishes slavery  
• 1905 - Siam (Thailand) abolishes slavery  
• 1910 - China abolishes slavery  
• 1923 - Afghanistan abolishes slavery  
• 1924 - Iraq abolishes slavery  
• 1924 - League of Nations Temporary Slavery Commission  
• 1926 - Slavery Convention. Bound all signatories to end slavery CONVENTION TO SUPPRESS THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY (25 Sep 1926)  
• 1926 - Nepal abolishes slavery  
• 1928 - Iran abolishes slavery  
• 1928 - Domestic slavery practised by local African elites abolished in Sierra Leone (paradoxically established as a place for freed slaves). A study found practices of domestic slavery still widespread in rural areas in the 1970s.  
• 1936 - Britain abolishes slavery in Northern Nigeria  
• 1942 - Ethiopia abolishes slavery  
• 1948 - UN Article 4 of the Declaration of Human Rights bans slavery globally  
• 1952 - Qatar abolishes slavery  
• 1952 - Saudi Arabia abolishes slavery 
• 1962 - Yemen abolishes slavery  
• 1963 - United Arab Emirates abolishes slavery  
• 1970 - Oman abolishes slavery  
• 1981 - Mauritania abolishes slavery (Mauritania has repeatedly abolished slavery. It is the last country to still have chattel slavery.)  
• Slavery continues today with illegal human trafficking

slavery:wikipedia 

Dear friends, 

Drawing from data in J.F.Maxwell's, ‘The Development of Catholic Doctrine concerning Slavery’, World Jurist 11 (1969-70) pp. 147-192 and 291-324, our website founder, Dr. John Wijngaards has prepared a helpful table showing the evolution through time of Rome's teachings about slavery.  The chart illustrates how change has happened... beginning with outright support for slavery right up to today...outright condemnation of it!  

The chart is found in our library at: Slavery.  A copy of it follows here.  If you have any questions, let me know. 

with love and blessings, 

~Sophie~ 

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362 AD: The local Council at Gangra in Asia Minor excommunicates anyone encouraging a slave to despise his master or withdraw from his service. (Became part of Church Law from the 13th century). 

354-430 AD: St. Augustine teaches that the institution of slavery derives from God and is beneficial to slaves and masters. (Quoted by many later Popes as proof of "Tradition".) 

650 AD: Pope Martin I condemns people who teach slaves about freedom or who encourage them to escape. 

1089 AD: The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II imposed slavery on the wives of priests. (Became part of Church Law from the 13th century). 

1179 AD: The Third Lateran Council imposed slavery on those helping the Saracens. 

1226 AD: The legitimacy of slavery is incorporated in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX which remained official law of the Church until 1913. Canon lawyers worked out four just titles for holding slaves: slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime; persons selling themselves into slavery, including a father selling his child; children of a mother who is a slave. 

1224-1274 AD: St.Thomas Aquinas defends slavery as instituted by God in punishment for sin, and justified as being part of the ‘right of nations’ and natural law. Children of a slave mother are rightly slaves even though they have not committed personal sin! (Quoted by many later Popes). 

1435 AD: Pope Eugenius IV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in the Canary Islands, but does not condemn slavery as such. 

1454 AD: Through the bull Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V authorises the king of Portugal to enslave all the Saracen and pagan peoples his armies may conquer. 

1493 AD: Pope Alexander VI authorises the King of Spain to enslave non-Christians of the Americas who are at war with Christian powers. 

1537 AD: Pope Paul III condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America.  

1548 AD: The same Pope Paul III confirms the right of clergy and laity to own slaves. 

1639 AD: Pope Urban VIII denounces the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America, without denying the four ‘just titles’ for owning slaves. 

1741 AD: Pope Benedict XIV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in Brazil, but does not denounce slavery as such, nor the importation of slaves from Africa. 

1839 AD: Pope Gregory XVI condemns the international negro slave trade, but does not question slavery as such, nor the domestic slave trade. 

1866 AD: The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons … It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given". 


The turn around 

1888 AD: Pope Leo III condemns slavery in more general terms, and supports the anti-slavery movement. 

1918 AD: The new Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope Benedictus XV condemns ‘selling any person as a slave’. (There is no condemnation of ‘owning’ slaves, however). 

1965 AD: The Second Vatican Council defends basic human rights and denounces all violations of human integrity, including slavery (Gaudium et Spes, no 27,29,67). 

http://www.womenpriests.org/teaching/slavery1.asp