Recent Developments

The purpose of this page is to keep you up to date about recent developments. In spite of the pressure of work, we are trying to keep the information up to date.

We have decided to give our web site www.womenpriests.org the official title: ‘Women’s Ordination - Catholic Internet Library’. We hope it will become a valuable resource at the service of Women’s Ordination movements and Church Reform organisations world wide.

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CIRCLES - Women's Ongoing Internet Consultation

CIRCLES is planning its first International Conference entitled: “What can we learn from the Ordination of women in the Anglican Communion?”

The main questions before the Conference will be 'After ten years of ordained women, what is the situation in the Church of England, in the Episcopal Church of the USA and Canada, and the Anglican Church in Australia? '

• What has gone well, what have been the problems?
• What are the stories of Catholic women who joined other Churches to realise their priestly vocation?
• What can we learn from all this wealth of experience for our own campaign?

The Conference will run through the entire length of the month of October. The format will be:

• We will have short initial texts on selected topics (such as those listed above) written by the resource persons.
• Participants add their comments and discussions.
• Resource persons in each "virtual workshop" help to lead the discussion into useful paths.
• We will also fix certain hours during the week for encounters in the attached Chatrooms - at times convenient to the resource persons who are willing to take part in this.
• Key resource persons will lead the discussion in various workshops and the Conference will result in a Communiqué, a Consolidated Report, and hopefully suggestions for Follow-up Action.

To share in this conference you will need to join CIRCLES, so why not sign up today? (http://www.womenpriests.org/circles/).

Dramatization of the Ordination of a Woman Deacon

The Catholic Women's Ordination group in Bristol has reenacted the ordination of women deacons in Cotham Parish Church on 31st of May 2003. A report, with 20 coloured illustrations, can be seen here: (http://www.womenpriests.org/gallery/mast_bri.asp)

Women were given the full ordination of the diaconate during the first millennium. From ancient manuscripts we know the precise rite through which they were ordained, and it shows unmistakably that their ordination was a full 'sacrament', just like that of male deacons. Moreover, this was not just a minor phenomenon. There have been tens of thousands of women deacons who served their parishes in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Crete and even the south of Italy.

Why is this question so important? Because the diaconate belongs to holy orders. According to general church councils (Trent and Vatican II) there is one sacrament of holy orders, encompassing the diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy. Since women were ordained deacons, they received holy orders. All the arguments used by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith such as "The Church has never done this", or "The Church does not have the power to ordain women", are exposed as untrue. The Church did impart the sacrament of holy orders to women. If they could be deacons then, they can be priests and bishops now!

This is a fact we should exploit in our campaign to make the wider church community aware of the need to redress the present imbalance in the ministries. One powerful way of doing so is to organise 'dramatizations', 'reconstructions' of how the ancient women deacons were ordained, with commentary pointing out the significance of the rituals used. We have now successfully performed demonstrations in Hobart (Australia) and London (UK). We urge you to perform the same in your own locality. Full scripts of how it can be done, with photographic illustrations, can be found on our website. (http://www.womenpriests.org/interact/deacrec1.asp)

Age-old Prejudice

Prejudice against women in the Church is thousands of years old. In our attempt to document this, we have republished an old anti-woman classic in full, namely: "Man superior to woman or A Vindication of Man’s Natural Right of Sovereign Authority over the Woman", by a Gentleman, London 1739. The book has eight chapters that 'prove' woman's inferiority (http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/sup_ind.asp ).

Here is a quote from the chapter on women's intellectual deficiency:

"Whether in florid Impotence they speak,
And, as the Prompter breathes, the Puppets squeak,
Or, Eve's true Spawn, and Tools of th' ancient Toad,
Half Froth, half Venom spit themselves abroad,
In, Puns, or Politics, or Tales, or Lyes,
Or Spite, or Smut, or Rhymes, or Blasphemies.
Their Wit all see-saw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now forward, now remiss,
And each herself one dull Antithesis.
Amphibious Things! That acting either Part,
The trifling Head, or the corrupted Heart,
Bullies at Cards, and Flirts when at the Board,
Now tilt like Dames, now swear like any Lord.
Their Tempter thus the Rabbis have expressed,
A Cherub's Face, a Reptile all the rest.
Beauty that shocks you, Parts that none will trust,
Wit that must creep, and Pride that licks the Dust."

The last lines, "a Cherub's Face, a Reptile all the rest", refers to the common belief that the snake in paradise was a woman, like Eve. Both are often represented with a reptile body and a sweet face (as in ‘Adam, Eve and the Serpent’ by Hugo van der Goes circa 1460).

The roots of such prejudice have not yet been overcome. In spite of official disclaims, they underlie the refusal to entrust the ministries to women. About this deep distrust of female nature in our culture (and the Church), read: 'Eve in Christian Culture' by Anne Baring (http://www.womenpriests.org/body/baring4.asp)

More help needed!

We still need more volunteers.

• We are looking for translators,
• for people who can help us promote the website,
• for people who read documents at home and formulate appropriate Meta Tags [will be explained on application],
• for editors
• and academic advisors.
• We also welcome material relevant to our topic that could be published on our website.

If you feel you can help us in any of the above or in any other way, please get in touch!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST.
WE ARE IN URGENT NEED OF MORE FINANCIAL HELP TO DEFRAY OUR RUNNING EXPENSES. If you can afford to support us, please, please, don't just stand by while we struggle to move mountains of prejudice! We need your assistance to keep our website growing in all ten languages. (http://www.womenpriests.org/support.asp)

On-line course on the Women’s Ordination Debate

Presenting the vast information on our web site in more manageable bites is a real challenge. We try to meet this need by our opening menus, but we are now also offering a ten-lesson on-line ‘course’ through which the key issues are explained and documented step by step. Click here!

Council of academic advisers

Our service to the Catholic community will depend on our ability to maintain the highest standards. We are therefore recruiting advisers from a wide range of international scholarship, covering sacred scripture, church history, patrology, psychology, and the many branches of theology. For practical reasons we are not publishing the list of these advisers at this moment in time. We welcome suggestions from you as to who should be invited.

Articles and Chapters from Books

We are continuously adding significant material to our catalogue. The process takes time. It requires the selection of suitable titles, scanning, editing in html language, acquiring the necessary permissions, and-so-on. We aim at classical texts, high-level academic contributions and pastorally significant documents. Among our recent acquisitions are two articles in support of women priests by Mary McAleese, President of the Republic of Ireland. You can help us by (a) drawing our attention to what it is worth acquiring; (b) offering your own research material or printed articles; (c) helping us in the editing process. You can work with us from home, since texts can be sent backwards and forwards over the Internet. To see a selection, Click here!.

Collections of classical texts

The section on medieval theologians has been updated and completed. In particular we can now present the following texts, all translated from the original Latin for www.womenpriests.org: Albert the Great, Duns Scotus, Durandus a Saint-Pourçain, Richard of Middleton, Bonaventure and Bellarmine, to mention but a few. Click here!

Meditation Series on Mary of Magdala

Sr. Theresia Saers has selected 15 striking traditional illustrations depicting Mary of Magdala, which she presents with commentary and reflections. It will be remembered that Mary was popular in the Middle Ages as the woman who, according to legend, had converted the Apostles and who had preached in the South of France. We will soon add a whole section of information on the Magdalene. Click here!

Meditation Series on Catholic Women seeking their identity

Tina van Lieshout in Holland who felt called to the priesthood, took her bishop to court when she was refused entry to the seminary training programme on the sole ground of her being a woman. She has described the search for her identity in 18 moving poems, each illustrated by one of her own paintings. Click here!

Body, Sex & Gender issues

This section explores the deep social and psychological foundations on which resistance to women priests is based. Below the surface lies an intricate web: weaving the concept of God, negative attitudes to body and sexuality, the roles ascribed to men and women, contraception in marriage, obligatory celibacy and other aspects of traditional Catholic belief and practice. Click here!

Speaking Out

Because of the special situation that now pertains in the Church, bishops, priests, religious, theologians and lay leaders have a duty to declare their position in the face of what they know to be wrong in official teaching and practice. Speaking out -- making one’s objections and criticisms known -- needs to be done with a great sense of prudence and responsibility. But keeping silent may no longer be the best, or the most responsible, option. This applies very much to the Church’s present ban on the ordination of women. In this section we offer a selection of challenging readings on the implications of this duty of speaking out. Click here!

Screen Saver

We have prepared a downloadable screensaver that presents some of the most significant illustrations from our web site: Mary in priestly vestments, tombstones of women deacons, St. Thérèse of Lisieux posing with a host and chalice, and so on. Click here!

Spreading the good news!

Please, pass this information on to friends or acquaintances whom you know to be interested in the ordination of women. If you are hosting a mailing list, feel free to incorporate it into your own offerings. Webmasters may want to post some of the information on their news bulletins.

Www.womenpriests.org continues to draw visitors, as our statistics show.

Public Relations Officer

Administrational Assistant

Academic Project Manager