Category: Women Priests

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Bishop vs. Bishop: Lutheran calls out Catholic over marriage

The retired presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Rt. Rev. Herbert Chilstrom, has delivered a stinging, public critique of his former Roman Catholic counterpart in Minnesota for aggressively campaigning for an anti-same sex marriage amendment on the November ballot.

“I recognize your authority in formulating positions for your own flock in Minnesota: That is one thing,” Chilstrom said in a letter to Roman Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt, published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“But for you and others to campaign for an amendment that imposes your stance on all citizens in Minnesota — including other Christians, believers of other faith groups and unbelievers — it is overstepping your bounds.”

Minnesota is one of four states voting on marriage this November. Washington, Maryland and Maine will cast ballots on whether to approve marriage equality. In Minnesota, Nienstedt has put $650,000 in church money into promoting the state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

Nienstedt has gone far beyond church leaders in Washington, where Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain allowed parishes to opt out of signature gathering for Referendum 74.

Nienstedt told St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocesan clergy that he would permit no “open dissension.” As the Star Tribune reported last week, “He wrote one outspoken priest, the Rev. Mike Tegeder, that if he persisted, ‘I . . . will remove you from your ministerial assignments’.”

Nienstedt is also notorious for responding to a Catholic mother’s plea that her gay son be accepted, “I urge you to reconsider the position that you expressed . . . Your eternal salvation may well depend upon a conversion of heart on this topic.”

Asked by the Star Tribune whether a loyal Catholic could vote No, Nienstedt said: “It would be difficult to comprehend how a person could not believe that marriage is anything but a union between one man and one woman. On this point, Catholic teaching is clear.”

Still, more than 80 former Catholic priests have signed a letter denouncing the amendment, and three retired Catholic priests have urged its defeat. Laity have placed “Another Catholic voting No” signs on their lawns. (Taking a cue from Minnesota, 63 former priests in the Seattle Archdiocese have endorsed marriage equality.)

“By word and action, you leave the impression that there is little room for dissent in your church,” Chilstrom wrote to Nienstedt. He cited the example of a former Catholic bishop in Minnesota, the Rt. Rev. Raymond Lucker, who questioned the church’s prohibition against married priests.

The Lutheran Bishop noted that in his denomination, “we engage in a wide spectrum of clergy and laity in developing statements and guidelines in our thinking about complex social issues.” If member disagree with stands taken in the church’s national assembly, the right of conscience is recognized.

“If there were a call from Roman Catholic members in Minnesota to vote on an issue of significance, would you allow such a vote?” Chilstrom asked Nienstedt. “And if a simple majority voted in favor, would you accept that vote as final? It’s clear that such a vote would not even be permitted in your church.

“There is evidence that many in your church will vote No on this amendment. I stand with them and with all who will vote No.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Women as Priests

By JUDITH LEVITT

REFORMERS within the Roman Catholic Church have been calling for the ordination of women as priests. The Vatican, however, refuses to consider the possibility and uses its power to silence those who speak out. Catholic clergy in Europe, Australia and the United States who have voiced public support for female ordination have been either dismissed or threatened with removal from administrative posts within the church.

For those who disobey the prohibition, the consequences are swift and severe. In 2008, the Vatican decreed that any woman who sought ordination, or a bishop who conferred holy orders on her, would be immediately “punished with excommunication.” It went a step further in 2010, categorizing any such attempt as delicta graviora — a grave crime against the church — the same category as priests who sexually abuse children.

Despite the official church position, clergy and laity have been fighting for the ordination of women since the early 1970s, hoping to expand upon the Vatican II reforms. And according to a 2010 poll by The New York Times and CBS, 59 percent of American Catholics favor the ordination of women.

In the last 10 years the Vatican has had to contend with a particularly indomitable group of women who seem to be unaffected by excommunication or other punishment offered by the church. The movement started when seven women were ordained by three Roman Catholic bishops aboard a ship on the Danube River in 2002. The women claimed their ordinations were valid because they conformed to the doctrine of “apostolic succession.” The group that grew out of that occasion calls itself Roman Catholic Womenpriests. There are now more than 100 ordained women priests and 11 bishops.

I grew up as a Catholic, although I don’t practice now. The first time I saw a female Roman Catholic priest on the church altar, dressed in traditional robes, performing the Eucharist and all of the rituals that I grew up with, I was amazed at how deeply it affected me emotionally. It had simply never occurred to me that a woman could preside over the church.

The Roman Catholic Church’s argument against the ordination of women is simple and relies on the logic of tradition: “that’s what we have always done.” Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter in 1994 saying that the church had no authority to ordain women because, among other reasons, Christ chose only men to be his apostles. Pope Benedict XVI agrees with his predecessor and insists that the church need offer no further justification for its opposition to women as priests, calling instead for a “radicalism of obedience.”

But contemporary theologians, historians and priests have been challenging the historical basis of the Vatican’s assertion. Recent research suggests that Mary Magdalene, among others, may have been an apostle and that women played leadership roles that profoundly shaped the early church.

Karen L. King’s recent discovery of a scrap of papyrus making reference to Jesus’ wife, and to a female disciple, adds weight to the charge that the Vatican’s opposition to the ordination of women is theologically and historically flawed. The Vatican, however, argues that the document was forged.

I photographed priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement to alter my own deep-seated perception of priests as male. I tried to capture their devotion and conviction and pay tribute to their efforts to reform the church.

Complete Article HERE!

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Bishop Patricia Fresen on Excommunication to Ordination

Imprisoned for breaking apartheid law, excommunicated for breaking Vatican law, Bishop Patricia Fresen looks more sweet grandma than warrior ​— ​especially carrying the stuffed black sheep she presents with a smile: “We’re the black sheep of the church,” she said.

She’s no stranger to working the outskirts.

Raised “a proper white South African,” Fresen was stunned upon entering her convent after matriculation (and years of segregation), greeted by 55 women ​— ​15 of them black. “I didn’t know it would be racially mixed,” she says now. “It never occurred to me. But I became colorblind.”

That journey would prove significant. After university, Fresen ​— ​in Santa Barbara last week to teach a workshop at La Casa de Maria ​—  worked in the city of Welkom as principal of a school for whites. But by the 1970s, Fresen remembered she and her fellow Dominicans began thinking, “Something’s wrong; we can’t go on like this.”

Apartheid was law by then, but a debate — ​that would prove a theme of Fresen’s life ​— ​ensued. On one side were those who said they couldn’t change apartheid: “The law must change first,” Fresen recounted. She said the others believed, “We mustn’t follow an unjust law; we must follow our conscience.” Their bishop, Denis Hurley, agreed with the latter group. It was risky and illegal, but he believed breaking the law was the only way it would change.

Essentially ignored by the police, they had some wiggle room to plot. Bishop Hurley challenged the principals to bring black students into their schools. They spent a year preparing ​— ​ensuring white students’ families were comfortable, reaching out to black families, teaching black children English ​— ​all while keeping it out of the papers to hold trouble at bay, relying instead on the African drum to spread the word.

On the first day of school, Fresen was overcome watching the children ​— ​black, white, all in the same uniform ​— ​streaming in. But before the goosebumps could dissolve, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up: She heard the stomping of police boots approaching her office. They gave her a week to get in line.

One week later, they took her to prison. Not one child was sent away; today the school is flourishing.

Years later, after receiving her doctorate in theology in Rome, Fresen began teaching seminary ​— ​teaching men to be priests ​— ​in Pretoria. And a longing to be a Catholic priest herself began to nag. She shushed it as best she could, telling herself, “Don’t be stupid.”

In 2002, while teaching at Johannesburg’s Catholic university, she heard about the Danube Seven ​— ​seven women who were ordained Catholic priests on Germany’s Danube river. Two months later, fate intervened: Fresen was sent to Germany for a weeklong course. She spent a day with two of those women; they asked if she felt called to the priesthood. She said yes. They rendezvoused in Barcelona on August 7, 2003 (nine years to the day of our interview); Fresen was ordained.

And then, all hell broke loose. Her parish phoned the Vatican; the cardinal ordered her to recant. Or, he said, leave.

Heartbroken and staggered, she left. She lost her job, her congregation, her family, and moved to Germany.

Since then, she’s found a home, a community. She’s been ordained bishop (by proper apostolic succession ​— ​which means sympathetic male bishops are ordaining women, at great personal risk), ordains women, performs sacraments, and leads workshops.

She’s also been excommunicated. While in St. Louis performing an ordination (in a borrowed sacred space where these clandestine events take place: this time a Jewish synagogue), Cardinal Raymond Burke sent a cadre of “spies,” with cameras. (He followed up, excommunicating any identifiable participants.) Someone handed Fresen an envelope (she thought it might be a check): inside, a summons. She ignored it. Three weeks later, the mail carrier delivered an official decree of excommunication, “with my name beautifully written,” she says, eyes shining.

Burke was promoted.

As for the big question ​— ​why stay? ​— ​Fresen says she believes there are two churches: the hierarchy and the people. She believes the people, the ones who want reform ​— ​the separation of celibacy and priesthood, the ordination of women ​— ​are reaching a critical mass. And this: “If I left, nothing would change. The hierarchy would take no more notice of us. We can only make change if we stay, so we are not going away.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Female bishop speaks up for views, talks about ‘Womenpriest Movement’

Bishop Patricia Fresen says she dreams of establishing a church in which people of all genders, races and sexual orientations are treated equally and allowed to assume positions of leadership.

Fresen, a leader of the Roman Catholic Womenpriest Movement, spoke Sunday to members of the Mary Magdalene First Apostle Church about the need for an all-inclusive church after Mass at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“There needs to be an emphasis on what unites us, rather than what divides us,” she said.

Fresen’s story
Born and raised in South Africa, Fresen was a nun in the Dominican Sisterhood for 45 years. She taught at St. John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria, South Africa, and at St. Augustine’s University in Johannesburg.

In 2003, Fresen was ordained a priest, which is a role the Roman Catholic Church reserves solely for men. As a result, she was excommunicated from the church and forced to leave her teaching positions.

Two years later, she was appointed a bishop and has been instrumental in bringing what supporters call the Womenpriest Movement to the United States. It is not recognized by the Catholic Church.

The Womenpriest Movement has support but there is still resistance, Fresen said.

“The resistance comes from a great fear of women and sexuality, and the long patriarchal tradition of the Roman Catholic Church,” she said.

Structure
Fresen said members of the Womenpriest Movement still consider themselves Catholic, but there are fundamental differences in how the churches are structured.

The Womenpriest Movement’s church is non-hierarchical and has a circular model in which leaders work in teams. Fresen said there are six regions of the Womenpriest Movement in the U.S.: North, West, South, East, the Great Waters region and the Midwest region.

Each region is led by a bishop, administrator and program director who are all elected by the people, Fresen said. The administrator is the main position in charge while the bishop has pastoral responsibilities and guides priests and deacons.

The second main difference between the churches is that women are allowed to hold leadership positions and nearly all the women involved in the Womenpriest Movement are married. Fresen said celibacy is not a requirement of ordination and neither is a vow of obedience to the bishop.

Fresen said the Womenpriest Movement advocates showing mutual respect for all religions, and expressing different cultures through liturgy and music.

Regina Nicolosi, bishop of the Midwest region of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, said it is important to her to spread the message of the movement because she believes in total equality for men and women.

Nicolosi said the law that does not allow women to be ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church is unjust, and she feels a strong call to advocate against the law.

“Being part of the Womenpriest Movement has helped me answer that call,” she said. “I want to belong to a church that is accepting of all races, all genders, all sexual orientations and takes that very seriously.”

Fresen said she uses humor to cope with the unjust structures of the Roman Catholic Church, and if the Womenpriest Movement is strong in its beliefs, “the church will back down, like a bully usually does.”

Fresen told audience members they must lose all fear of excommunication if the Womenpriest Movement is to be successful. She cited Nelson Mandela as an example of someone who spent 27 years in prison because he refused to obey what he considered an unjust law.

“In good conscience, one must not obey an unjust law … but you must be prepared to pay the price,” Fresen said.

Complete Article HERE!

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A church celebrates with women as priests

Several months ago, Kathy Schuck’s 15-year-old daughter posed a question that seemed innocuous but that became a call to action.

The gist of Ann Schuck’s question: Why did girls and women seem to be less important than men in their church, St. Rose of Lima in North Wales?

Kathy Schuck, 56, of Blue Bell, said she had long felt women were confined to secondary roles in the Roman Catholic Church, where she did not hear a message of inclusion. The hierarchy and exclusion of the voices of the lay members troubled her, she said. So, after 15 years, she left her parish.

“It disturbed me that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church uses a term like ‘radical feminism’ to . . . categorize any woman who wants to have a voice in the church when that voice is not in total compliance with doctrine and orthodoxy,” Schuck said. “It was clear to me that my lack of action reinforced that that behavior was acceptable – and it isn’t.”

On Sunday, she joined more than 50 others belonging to the St. Mary Magdalene Community in celebration of its fifth anniversary. The group is led by two Roman Catholic female priests not recognized by the Vatican. Sunday’s celebratory service was held in rented space at the Drexel Hill United Methodist Church.

St. Mary Magdalene is one of several worship communities being led by women in 28 states, said Suzanne Thiel, president of Roman Catholic Womenpriests USA, a nonprofit group that prepares women for ordination and carries out the ceremonies.

“We provide spiritual comfort and solace for people who no longer find it in the Roman Catholic Church,” said Eileen McCafferty DiFranco, who was ordained in 2006 and who, along with her St. Mary’s co-pastor, is one of 113 female Roman Catholic priests, bishops, and deacons worldwide, according to Thiel.

At least eight more ordinations, which the organization maintains are valid, are planned worldwide by Christmas, Thiel said.

“We know the Vatican and the hierarchy are not happy with us,” Thiel acknowledged. “What’s important is the Catholic people have accepted us.”

Since 1976, the Vatican has been strongly reiterating that women are not full members of the Roman Catholic clergy after the Episcopal Church validated the illicit ordination in 1974 of 11 women in Philadelphia.

Then Pope Paul VI reminded Catholics that an all-male clergy was a “constant and universal tradition” of the Roman church because Jesus freely chose only men to be his apostles. By their “natural resemblance” to Christ, male priests also serve as the “sacramental sign” of him, the pontiff said.

Advocates of female clergy had long accused the church hierarchy of misogyny.

St. Mary Magdalene has drawn male and female members, some from as far as Delaware. In general, members said they did not feel fulfilled by their home Catholic parishes and sought a more intimate community with less hierarchy where their voices would be more valued.

“It’s all about intimacy. You can’t be intimate with a parish that has 2,000 to 3,000 members and no mechanism to get to know people on a deeper level,” said Judy Miller, 73, of Hockessin, Del., a member of St. Mary for three years with her husband, Chuck.

Schuck said she was welcomed, greeted by name, and introduced. “I was as comfortable as I was in someone’s home,” she said.

The St. Mary Magdalene Community has grown from 10 members to about 90, with a satellite community in Northeast Philadelphia, said DiFranco, who, along with being a priest, is a school nurse in the city. Services usually draw 30 to 40 members.

St. Mary members said that they enjoyed the congregation’s interactive homilies and that everyone was welcome to take communion. DiFranco said she doesn’t use prayers routinely heard in traditional Catholic Masses, opting instead for “non-sexist” prayers.

Members collectively decide which charities to support.

Maryrose Petrizzo, a member of St. Mary of Magdalene, said leadership opportunities were limited in her church in Wilmington. Among the positions she held was youth minister and eucharistic minister. “I could only do so much,” she said.

But at St. Mary Magdalene, she has led the liturgy and given the homily.

“That’s been so life-giving to be able to give a homily,” said Petrizzo, who has applied to be ordained.

After DiFranco’s ordination in 2006 in Pittsburgh, staff from St. Vincent de Paul in Germantown visited her and asked her not to show up for communion.

She preached on Sunday about following one’s dreams, much like women who have heeded the call to be priests.

“We succeeded in being priests in spite of the church,” she said after the homily. “Where human beings shut the door, God opens the window.”

Complete Article HERE!