Going against
Catholic law,
12 women seek
ordination
They are willing to
risk being excommunicated
to try to change
church doctrine
Elizabeth Fernandez,
afgate.com from the Web, July 30, 2006
In an act of faith and insurrection,
a dozen women on a chartered boat in Pittsburgh, Penn., will be ordained Monday
as clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the first service of its kind in the
United States. To the church, which prohibits the ordination of women, the
service is invalid and illicit.
But to the women, including four from California -- two live in the Bay Area --
the ordinations are genuine, though they recognize they are a violation of canon
law. They say they are willing to risk excommunication in the hope of
sparking a revolution of equality within an institution resistant to change.
"I've spent my whole life trying to get into this club,'' says Kathleen Kunster,
61, an Emeryville resident and grandmother of four who holds a master's degree
in divinity and has worked for more than 20 years in lay ministry.
"The purpose of this ordination is to follow the call that we have,'' she says.
"We all love the church very much. I am a Roman Catholic, I will die a
Roman Catholic. I'm not budging.''
While mainline Protestant faiths now permit women to be ordained, they are
barred from the Catholic Church's highest echelons. A decade after a papal
affirmation of the prohibition, American Catholics nonetheless increasingly
favor women's ordination, part of a growing worldwide movement to recognize
women as leaders in one of Christianity's most conservative faiths.
"I feel called to be a priest -- to say Mass, to baptize people, to anoint
people when they are dying,'' says Kunster. "I've had long conversations
with God: 'Why did you give me this desire when there's nothing I can do
about it?' I've never changed; I never could stop wanting to be a
priest.''
Kunster is one of eight women who will don priestly garments aboard the
Majestic, an excursion riverboat that will sail the Allegheny, the Monongahela
and the Ohio rivers. The other four women, including Juanita Cordero of
Los Gatos, will be ordained as deacons.
"I'm not rushing into the priesthood -- next summer I will be ordained a
priest,'' she says. Cordero's husband, three daughters, a son and her
84-year-old mother will be on board to support her.
Cordero entered a Los Gatos convent in 1959 when she was 17. She took
final vows, but left the convent in 1969.
"I felt God was calling me to something else. I didn't know what it was,''
she says.
In 1971, Cordero married Don Cordero, a Jesuit priest. The couple was
promptly excommunicated from their Phoenix parish. They raised five
children and have been deeply involved for three decades in parish ministry.
"Someday people will look back and think 'Why did women have to wait so long?'
'' says Cordero, who teaches nutrition and child development at De Anza College
in Cupertino. "We've waited 2,000 years. Priesthood should be open
to women as well as men. It is a man-made law that we can't be priests.''
The church, for its part, says it models the priesthood on Jesus, who chose men
as his apostles.
"Having a male-only ministerial priesthood does not demean or devalue the
important role of women,'' says Maurice Healy, spokesman for the Archdiocese of
San Francisco. "I see a similarity in that limiting childbirth to women
does not disenfranchise men from participating in the family or parenting.''
He characterizes Monday's service as a "distraction.''
"We would join with others in praying that these people will see the light and
will rejoin the church,'' says Healy. "Because by their actions they are
placing themselves outside the church community.''
Far from removing themselves from the flock, the women say they hope Monday's
service will culminate lifetime avocations to be at the heart of church life.
Stressing the role played by females of the early church, the women believe
there are no scriptural or divine obstructions to the priesthood.
"We are breaking an unjust law,'' says Dana Reynolds, 58, co-founder of Mosaics,
a women's spirituality center in Monterey. "It's no different than when
apartheid was broken. Or when the suffragettes said it's time to vote.
Or when Rosa Parks said 'I'm not going to sit at the back of the bus.'
It's time for this.''
While Monday's service lacks church support, the participants believe it to be
valid, tracing its roots of authenticity to a secretly performed service in 2002
on the Danube River. In what became known as the "Danube Seven,'' seven
women were reportedly ordained by church higher-ups -- though at least one of
those men lacked Vatican standing. Within months, the seven women were
excommunicated.
Since then, four women were reportedly secretly ordained bishops by a Catholic
bishop -- the bishop's identity has never been revealed to avoid reprisal from
Rome. Those female bishops have overseen several women's ordination
services, including a ceremony July 2005 off the Canadian shores involving eight
American women and a Canadian.
One of those women, Victoria Rue, has been holding weekly services in a chapel
at San Jose State University, prompting the San Jose Diocese to issue a warning
that Rue "is not a validly ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church.''
The notice also told Catholics that they should refrain from her services
because they "are not in union with the local or universal church.''
Roberta Ward, the diocese's spokesperson, says the women are not credible.
"If a male were to go to the bishop with the same story of being ordained on a
river by a bishop whose name he couldn't reveal, the bishop would go 'Hmmm,' ''
says Ward. "In the eyes of the official church, they are not priests or
deacons. Priests get ordained for service to a diocese or a religious
order. These people don't belong to any particular diocese. They are
out of the loop.''
While the church will not formally welcome the women to its priestly ranks,
undoubtedly they could be well employed. The Catholic Church in the United
States has suffered a 27 percent drop in its priest ranks since 1960. Over
the same period, the number of Catholics climbed by 42 percent, according to the
Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, triggering a nearly sixfold rise
in the number of parishes lacking a resident priest pastor.
With the shrinking priesthood, the profile of lay women and nuns in parish life
increased to the point where they now perform almost every priestly function.
With women's heightened visibility, support has grown for women priests.
"Over the last 18 years, support for women's ordination has gone from below 50
percent to 65 percent support for celibate women and 55 percent support for
married women,'' says William D'Antonio, a noted Catholic University
sociologist. "But before we get to women priests, the next step would be
to have married-men priests. I think that's what the Vatican would address
first."
At Monday's service, there will be a few key departures from a traditional
ordination. The women will not take a vow of chastity, nor will they
promise obedience to a bishop but rather to God. They also have agreed not
to take on honorary titles such as "Mother.''
"I'm so in awe of these women's courage and bravery,'' says Aisha Taylor,
executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, which has been
advocating for female priests for 31 years. According to Taylor, there are
more than 150 women in the priesthood pipeline.
"This isn't for me alone. I'm trying to make a way for younger women,''
says Olivia Doko, 63, a Pismo Beach resident who has been married for 43 years
and has two sons. Founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, which
offers spiritual retreats, Doko plans to be ordained a priest Monday.
"In some minds, we are out of the church,'' she says. "I don't see it that
way. I hope to guide people to the church of the future, which will
welcome everyone to the table.''
|
