WOMEN-PRIESTS:

...Catholics, for one, will have to face up to the rank injustice of depriving women-Christians of their right to follow the call of the Spirit on the basis of antiquated notions of biology, anthropology and theology...

...And the community is now calling for their ministry...

...Finally, in one sense, the question of the ordination of women is a non-question...

...In September of the bicentennial year the General Convention of the Episcopal Church will meet in Minneapolis: The House of Bishops and the House of Deputies comprising over 900 members, ordained and not...

...We know that the Church is free to ordain women if it so decides...

...the question is basically pastoral...

...May we praise God for those this day who act in obedience to God while we love and respect those whom this day we cannot obey," prayed Rev...

...the question is not 'Have you broken the law?' . . . but 'Has your conduct been faithful to the account of Christian faith, community, and life to which both you and the institutional church owe obedience . . . and are willing to be corrected...

...In a church "always in need of reform," I would call for a rethinking of sacramental themes and practice contributing to that very goal: a renewed priesthood, a renewed church and a renewed ministry...

...4) Church women to highlight the deep concerns of women in all parts of the world and find concrete ways-political, social, economic- to assist them in their struggle...

...Women had just not existed as equal human persons whose ideas, feelings and insight might contribute to solving the problem of how to love, understand and serve God's people...

...what is its purpose...

...Sue Hiatt and the Rev...

...Furthermore, their ministry would not follow a masculine model, but express their own style and spirit...

...Bishop James Montgomery, Bishop of Chicago, told his clergy that "none of the persons presumably ordained under these circumstances will be licensed to perform any ministerial function in this diocese...

...The same Archdeacon, quoted in the Sun-Times, said: "These women are no more priests than monkeys in the trees...

...If so, the most graced gesture the Episcopal Minneapolis Convention delegates might make in 1976 would be to ratify the Spirit's action and obey...

...Fantastic...

...This masculine predominance...

...Alone because they had no concept of women as suitable partners in their intellectual or spiritual lives...

...Then this confirming by a group in the name of the Church would be thrilling, significant, a glorious occasion important to their families, colleagues, spouses-all who have experienced that gift being confirmed...

...3) that the same Commission discover ways and means to raise the level of consciousness of women about their obligation to participate in the full life of the Church at every level according to their gifts...

...of being father, younger-son-of-the-pastor, counselor, public accountant, fund-raiser, liturgist, choir director, CCD teacher, and full-time dutch-uncle...

...They will be called upon to discern the gifts in their sister-priests...

...For the U.S...

...Leaving green Accra, flying north over the Sahara to, Rome and thence to Jerusalem, I was really ready for the news from Philadelphia on July 29, '74...

...what is ordination...

...The Rt...

...The men insisted that it was quite possible to handle these two disparities without even referring to the ordination of women: To get to the stage of a written document, compromise allowed this assertion to be included, but we followed it with strong recommendations for: 1) a study to discover from the experience of men and women in relationship today what it means to be Christian community...

...Philadelphia, I believe, was the answer...

...Especially threatening were menstruation and pregnancy...

...2) ways to build a world support-community for those concerned that the theology of churches include the perspective of women...

...Only on this basis may the Philadelphia ordination be judged...

...12, 1973], documenting the exercise of spiritual and temporal jurisdiction on the part of women for some 1,500 years in the West, until the Renaissance revived Graeco-Roman views of women as inferior...

...However, the shock waves from the ordination are having a powerful impact in non-ordaining Christian groups, Episcopal, Catholic, and some Lutheran, since they share the same biblical, historical and theological roots for prejudices now threatened with extermination -prejudice now challenged for all these churches...

...But many Episcopalian women feel it may be the end to the exploitation of the 120 women-deacons in their church, and of themselves as always bridesmaids, never brides, though they have proven their competence in the crucible of ministry...

...Its Working Report called for: 1) support of their sisters in Churches where ordination and the employment of women as pastors and priests is a problem...

...Let us undertake it in His name...

...This time the answer should be affirmative...

...It now remains for the official Church to break through cultural-historical cobwebs into the light of sacramental confirmation of what the Spirit is doing in the churches, especially seen in the courage and power given these eleven women to follow that Spirit's call...

...In addition, we urge member Churches of the World Council of Churches to open all service opportunities to women...

...For instance, in the early Church deaconesses were ordained and, later, quasi-episcopal abbesses officiated as bishops (not saying Mass) until 1874, e.g., at Las Huelgas in Spain...

...Paul Washington, Rector of Church of the Advocate in a black neighborhood in Philadelphia before 1500 people witnessing the ordination of eleven Episcopal deacons-all of them women...

...And what they are is today's sign from the Spirit of what priesthood means and what ministry should do: help the Church be what she is-a loving servant in the world who witnesses to Jesus as Lord through the power of the Spirit...

...Women should certainly be admitted to ordination in all the Christian churches, then, but after waiting this long, they have a right to their own rite, which they would design, and not one hoary with cultural, totally-male accretions...

...For them the Episcopal women-priests are a sign of rain in a thirsty land...

...They further recommended that the World Council incorporate these Berlin recommendations in preparation for the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi in 1975...

...The ordination of 11 women priests, then, calls for a re-orientation of their ideas and role models by Roman Catholics so closely allied to the Episcopal Church in liturgy and doctrine...

...My dismay at such delay on the part of the Church in dealing with this real question only increased as these facts sank in...

...Quick and harsh were the repercussions following the act...

...Robert L. DeWitt, Rt...

...But if we understand his taking upon himself in that Incarnation all of humankind and so redeeming "us," then hasn't the Church been lacking half the official, visible sacramental manifestation of Christ's Incarnation and Redemption by barring women from sacramental confirmation of their ministry for some two thousand years...

...and why...

...Our forgetfulness of such facts has been remedied recently by Joan Morris's book, The Lady Was A Bishop, [Commonweal, Oct...

...during such periods...

...So the principle of pastoral ministry is the Incarnation, surely...

...In one of those historic confrontations in Christianity, doctrine and discipline came face to face with personal call again in the birthplace of American independence, the primordial national law-breaking place of the writers of the Declaration...

...They may soon experience the shock of hearing a priestly woman speaking the words of consecration and see her minister to their Episcopal friends...

...is an instance of our larger failure to think deeply about our nature as sexual beings who not only find fulfillment in relationship, but who combine in our individual selves masculine and feminine potentialities...

...Far from being a threat, I can see the ministry and the ordination of women as part of the coming of age of the human race, a growth in human freedom for w&men ( = women & men...

...it's unfortunate at the moment for it doesn't communicate meaning...

...Every day I meet women studying for ordination in face of the adamant refusal of that sacrament by the institutional Church...

...They're not property at all...

...In reality, though, do men have so much to be afraid of...

...If it were clear what gift of the Spirit the present sacrament is confirming publicly, their desiring it would not be ambiguous, but at the moment such is not the case...

...cago lashed out at the NCR story on the ordination and declared: ". . . surely a Catholic person cannot believe that priests-whatever the sex-are achieved in this way...

...But culture is ready for change when attitudes arrive at the temperature for recognizing the equal status of women in the socio-political-religious milieux...

...In its most profound meaning Holy Orders confirms a gift and a calling of the Holy Spirit to serve the people of God...

...Given the past summer, the Philadelphia ordination was predictable...

...It's better to be faithful, even for a short period of time, than not to do it at all," said Emily Hewitt of Andover Newton about herself and the others ordained...

...Church, the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment is the thermometer on the wall...

...Otherwise, why would we have such difficulty facing up to the notion of ordaining women when there is no compelling scriptural, historical, or theological reason why women cannot be ordained...

...Daniel Corrigan...

...Both bishops and women-priests know the history of the 1973 Episcopal General Convention where permission for female ordination failed only because "an equitable rule of procedure in the House of Deputies frustrated the will of the majority," according to the "Open Letter to the Church" issued by the ordaining bishops: Rt...

...One even went so far as to inform his lady-priest that she was not welcome as a communicant in his diocese...

...What will they lose...

...To put up with it is to put up with a lie...

...Why not just dispense with the term "priest" for a century or so...

...Both the women's frustration and the men's fear are real, but they are subsidiary issues and not the real question...

...Here we get closer to the real issues: Who has and who gives the right to ordain and be ordained...

...In a real sense, the members must remember that they, too, will be on trial before the whole people of God...

...3) Christian women to commit themselves to understand that the mission of the Church in the 20th century is expressed in political and economic actions, and that events sometimes make it necessary to support suppressed groups that resist institutions including governments...

...But true, and so deep in the cultural unconscious by this time that its success is assured...

...Aren't they tired (some obviously are...

...They are deeply frustrated in pursuit of a Holy Grail ever fading into a mist of promises, yet deeply faithful to the call of the Spirit urging them on in spite of pain and ridicule...

...Again, hasn't the super-demand made upon men to fight, provide, and always lead all the time tended to "de-self" them through hundreds of years of feeling psychically alone (with other men) on this earth...

...Until that canon changes all talk about equality by theologian or bishop is so much empty rhetoric and Catholic women, too, remain subject to a 13th century concept of the human and an Old Testament notion of cultic priesthood...

...Canon 968 says quite plainly "only a baptized person of the male sex may receive Holy Orders...

...First of all, don't we want a better idea of what ordination means...

...And will they initiate a process of healing...

...Do they want to dispense sacraments, officiate at Eucharists, or are their gifts teaching, healing, reconciling, administering...

...Three months after the historic July 29, 1974, the Episcopal House of Bishops decide to endorse in principle, by an almost three-to-one majority, the ordination of women...

...The net result seemed like a very small bite for that starving lady, today's Christian churchwoman, but when we note that the Faith & Order Commission itself then had only 4 women among its 116 members and the Working Committee, 2 out of 29, it was a move forward-but much too slowly for the rate of social change...

...Then confer the sacrament of "Order" to proclaim publicly the person in a community who proves to be the coordinator of the gifts of the faithful in that community: woman or man...

...Certainly, we found them "not present in proportionate numbers in councils and decision-making bodies" of their groups...

...2) a study by the Faith & Order Commission of the history of the role of women in the community and why their exercise of full ministry has been impeded...

...the Church is entitled to the style of ministry provided by women as well as men...

...Eventually in the historical process, a common rite could evolve, more representative of feminine as well as masculine ordinands...

...Men and women at this moment are healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling in Jesus' name...

...What does that environment presage for '76...

...We have long known the idea of both baptism and penance of desire (perfect contrition...

...If we listen to the signs of the Spirit's action in the successful ministries of women everywhere, we have women priests ordained or not...

...That's what the "disobedience" was all about, even though most of the bishops of those ordained conceded that they doubted any specific prohibition against ordained women in their canon law...

...Nor is the right to receive orders...

...Yet it was a true straw in the wind, for if they could speak thus in Berlin and Geneva, could the U.S.A...

...Our Accra committee, diverse in race, color, sex and denomination, labored through hours of "coming together" on where women were and where we thought they should be in the life of the Church...

...Recent study has substantiated the inadequacy of such bases...

...William F. Creighton of Washington, D.C, has stopped all ordinations in his diocese, regardless of sex, until further action by the General Convention...

...If ministry is manifested in healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling, undoubtedly the answer is "yes...

...Eventually I trust our goal will be full human liberation, involving all w&men in the battle for positive reform of society: working for the family in mutuality, preferring diversity to uniformity, complementarity to competition, interdependence to separation...

...My task as a Catholic consultant there was to serve on a committee asked to prepare a Plenary Session on women for the Fifth Assembly using these same Berlin materials as part of the agenda...

...Frankly, I think it was an exploitation of the women...

...Stephen and the Incarnation Church, Washington, D.C.-the bishop declared the baptisms fully valid...

...Giving or withholding the gifts is up to the Spirit...

...On July 22, I reached Accra, in Ghana, site of the first meeting of the Faith & Order Commission of the World Council of Churches in the Third World...

...Incredibly enough, this would be the first plenary ever devoted to the topic of women...

...If the greatest goal of human life is a meaningful loving relationship with God found in and through loving our neighbor, then suddenly discovering the full person-hood of half the human race will give us another piece of the puzzle of who and what God is...

...Episcopal canon law may be ambiguous on the question, but not so, Catholic...

...However, the real fun began when "hard-fact" recommendations had to be drawn from these two conclusions...

...Others, women/men, might find their gifts publicly confirmed by the Sacrament of Confirmation at a time in their lives when community and serving have taught them what their gifts are...

...However, a different rite would not mean an "inferior" sacramental brand of Orders...

...There was not one woman-member of the Faith & Order Secretariat, although we were assured that would be remedied...

...That view goes back into ancient cultures which, through fear and superstitution, ascribed the mystery of women's biological and reproductive cycles to the influence of demons...

...After all, the World Council's "Study Report," an ecumenical document on ministry, had already stated in January of '74: Part of the trouble (ordination of women) comes from the predominance of male imagery in theological reasoning and predominance of male assumptions in Church organizations...

...What is priesthood and what has it become...

...Is the Spirit giving such gifts, calls, powers to women today so that the Church in its historical mission must now confirm them sacramentally...

...3:28), we long to see the dawn of the deepest human reconciliation: that of women and men...

...This, the real task, lies ahead...

...At last we can marshal 100 percent of our human potential in a total response of humankind working through the real problem of our time: challenging together the ethos of our decadent civilization in Christ's name...

...The gifts of service as manifestations of the power of that Spirit for the good of the Christian community are not private property...

...Their feminine descendants, the eleven new priests, say they seek to follow their consciences and the call of the Spirit...

...Ordination will only confirm what they are...

...Although the Apostolic Constitutions defended women from such imputations, women in some places still could not receive the Eucharist, approach the altar, or even enter a church during such times...

...Together, living in the first age not only to hear but to be able to implement Paul's liberation theology: "neither slave nor free, male or female...

...The actual ministry of women is the thermal environment warmed by the fire of the Spirit...

...If I finally can't exercise the office I'm called to, it seems better to do that than to make a mockery of the Gospel...

...Alison Cheek baptized eight babies at the Easter service in St...

...Discern" means neither destroy nor repress...

...be far behind...

...We agreed that "women today are not in a position to respond freely and in full obedience to the call of the Spirit to exercise their gifts in the churches...

...Indeed, women can be ordained, they just have been, but I would hope, ordained to a renewed priesthood of greater benefit to both men and women priests and to the people of God...

...Yet, some have taken disciplinary action against their women deacons, now priests, suspending them, forbidding them faculties or license to perform ministerial functions...

...One theologian put it thus: "the appeal of any action which violates the laws of the church must be to that theology which the church imperfectly embodies in its laws...

...Furthermore, the Church not only proclaims the Gospel in her ministry as Christ in the world, she also discerns the gifts in the faithful...

...Yet, let's ask a more fundamental question: what is it women aspire to in ordination...

...for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal...

...Edward R. Welles, II, and Rt...

...Carter Heyward are employed as professors at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and are functioning as priests in that capacity-which includes celebrating the Holy Eucharist in the seminary chapel...

...And since they feel they are the church in microcosm, and with them they have a large community recognizing their call as from God, then they see their ordination as "evangelical disobedience": "You cannot continue putting up with the church's complicity with being untrue to the Gospel...

...A decision to ordain women is not enough if the predominance of male attitudes remains...

...Because, even at this very moment, The Rev...

...Ordination of desire experienced by women for hundreds of years is now blossoming into official confirmation by the people of God and the official Church...

...I first heard that Berlin report last July in Geneva and found it quite mild compared to the ideas of women seminarians in my classes in Berkeley at the Graduate Theological Union...

...Since this body is the same group which declared the Philadelphia ordination invalid because the four ordaining bishops lacked jurisdiction, the door swings open for 1976...

...and one my small committee insisted upon (in strong reaction to #3 above): 4) that the Commission seek to discover how to raise the level of consciousness of men in the Church as to their obligation to foster and recognize the gifts of women so that the Church may have the benefit of the total ministry of men and women in following the lead of the Holy Spirit...

...Ministry is related to mission as means to end, and the Church fulfills its mission by ministering to humankind as the sacrament of Christ in the world...

...Leviticus, too, gives us the contamination theory of women's contact with the altar, sacred things, and even chairs, utensils, dough, etc...

...Most certainly, they could not be ordained priests or serve at the altar, while the clerical ministry of deaconesses was often permitted only after sixty when women had passed the menopause and the "contagion" of impurity...

...If World Council Christians at Accra outside the Catholic fold could move this slowly (some of them already ordain women), then it seemed to me that the Holy Spirit would have to spring another "joyful surprise"-like a Vatican II out of the blue...

...The Rev...

...Rather, the Church must shape her patterns, laws and practice of ministry in obedience to the Gospel, as interpreted by the Spirit through powerful deeds in human beings, in an ever-changing social context...

...We will have in the new personhood of women another hint about what God had in mind in making us women: male and female humankind, a lesson we have not adequately learned for lack of experiential evidence so far...

...The Archdeacon of the Episcopal diocese of ChiSISTER Dorothy h. Donnelly, C.S.J., is a member of the faculty at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, California...

...He said it was "conscientiously impossible" for him to ordain men but not women as long as the dispute remains unresolved...

...Is the Church, then, to bow obediently to this power of the Spirit freely giving gifts without consulting us...

...Wouldn't a theology of the gifts in team (man and woman) ministry relieve them of 80 percent of such confusion of roles and goals, and allow them to discover and develop their own gifts in a discerning community...

...Some men see in the women's ordination a profound threat to their own priesthood or to male hegemony in general...

...The chief reasons, then, are legal (canon law) and cultural...

...It was an illegal, invalid, and irregular act...

...First of all, the World Council of Churches called a Consultation on Sexism in West Berlin, June 15-22, highlighting discrimination against women...

...We especially need to examine some heavy assumptions in all those questions...

...Has your act brought the implications of the Gospel into fuller engagement with the life of our times?'" Negative responses to the women's ordination only lead to further division, pain, misunderstanding, and eventually to making the Church quite irrelevant to many women whose ministry the Church badly needs...

...Will prayerful, loving discernment take place...