Women are a problem for the Catholic Church

— An institution with ingrained misogyny

Women comprise half of the Catholic Church but end up being a category.

Papal plámás is no substitute for an end to discrimination against women

By Soline Humbert

The Catholic Church is bedevilled by sex … the female sex. Church men, who claim a privileged insight into the mind of God, earnestly agonise over what women can be and do. Mostly, what they can’t be and can’t do. Obstat sexus: “her sex prevents her”. It is ubiquitous and overrides Christ’s great commandment “love one another as I have loved you”.

Three years ago the Catholic Church worldwide embarked on what it called a synodal journey, described as the largest consultation process ever, involving in theory at least, every church member. This led to two assemblies in Rome, one last year and the final one which just concluded last weekend.

A 52-page document is the fruit of that process. Each of the 155 paragraphs was voted on by the members, mostly bishops but with some “non–bishops” too, including 14 per cent of women. Women had campaigned long and hard to get these few votes.

All through his pontificate Pope Francis has reaffirmed: ‘That door is closed.’

In September an obituary for American Sr Teresa Kane reminded us how in 1979 she had made worldwide news when she publicly implored John Paul II: “The Church, in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons, must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all the ministries in our church.” Not only did this fall on deaf ears but the closed doors got even more tightly locked and woe to whoever dared raise the issue.

All through his pontificate Pope Francis has reaffirmed: “That door is closed.” Not just to the priesthood. Asked whether a young girl could dream of becoming a deacon his curt answer was “No”.

So it is hardly news when in 2024 the Synodal Document states: “By virtue of Baptism, women and men have equal dignity as members of the People of God. However, women continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of the Church’s life. This is to the detriment of serving the Church’s shared mission.”

Women deacons will continue being studied ‘ad infinitum’ in a Vatican commission

The issue of women’s second-class status generally, and their ordination to the diaconate and presbyterate, was raised in many countries during the earlier consultation phases, including here in Ireland, but was filtered out. Any mention of women priests was carefully excised. Out of sight, out of mind.

Women deacons will continue being studied “ad infinitum” in a Vatican commission. This is the 4th commission and the second one under Pope Francis; the first one set up in 2016 never published its findings, and this one, set up in 2020, still hasn’t produced an interim report. No hurry since in any case the female diaconate is deemed “not ripe”.

Women are half of the church but end up being a category, an issue, a problem in a patriarchal institution with ingrained misogyny.

In fact, this women’s issue was deemed too contentious to be on the table at last month’s synodal gathering. Pope Francis entrusted it to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) who will report, if possible, next June.

It doesn’t matter whether one has the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, one must have the same sex

The DDF is an all-male clerical body with 28 consultors, mostly Italian priest theologians and six women. They are studying women saints, mystics, doctors of the church. Dead women, safely canonised, are easier to deal with than live ones, especially those with a calling deemed impossible because “her sex prevents it”.

It doesn’t matter whether one has the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, one must have the same sex.

Coinciding with the opening of the Assembly last month, Pope Francis published a book on women: Sei Unica (You are unique), subtitled: A Hymn To The Feminine Genius. The seven special talents he lists are obviously not needed in the ordained ministries. It’s hard not to cringe at the stereotyping. All the papal plámás in the world are no substitute for equality, justice and an end to discrimination.

When I read in the document its recommendation for more women to be involved in training men for the priesthood, I thought of another woman who had also just died. As a Dominican Sister in South Africa, Patricia Fresen had courageously fought the apartheid regime.

To answer her call she was ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and ministered as a priest and a bishop

Later when she trained seminarians to deliver homilies, she became aware that as a woman she could never preach at Mass and her eyes were opened to the gender apartheid in the church, which is no more godly than the racial one was. To answer her call she was ordained in the Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement and ministered as a priest and a bishop.

No more walking the synodal pathway hopelessly kicking cans down the road. That gender apartheid must be dismantled now. The Gospel requires it and the Spirit shows the way.

Soline Humbert is a spiritual director and the author of the forthcoming memoir God Calls, Rome Stalls

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

April 29, 2013July 24, 2026

Women Catholic deacons ‘no longer taboo’

Germany’s top Roman Catholic has called for women to be allowed to become deacons, which would enable them to perform baptisms and marriages outside of mass – a novelty for Catholic women.

Archbishop of Freiburg Robert Zollitsch, who chairs the German Bishops’ Conference, called for the change at the end of a four-day meeting to discuss possible reforms.

The conference, the first of its kind, invited 300 Roman Catholic experts to propose reforms. Zollitsch’s comments echo year-long calls from the Central Committee of German Catholics to permit women to become deacons. On Sunday, Zollitsch said that aim was no longer a ‘taboo.’

Zollitsch said the Catholic Church could only regain credibility and strength by committing to reform. He described an “atmosphere of openness and freedom” at the conference.

Deacons assist priests during church services and can perform baptisms and marriages outside of mass. Their primary role however is to serve the needy in their community and their duties are considered secular rather than pastoral.

Another proposal to emerge from the conference was to extend the rights of remarried divorcees to sit on church bodies such as parish councils. Conference members also discussed the possibility of granting them the right to receive Holy Communion and attend confession.

“It’s important to me that, without undermining the sanctity of marriage, these men and women are taken seriously within the church and feel respected and at home,” said Zollitsch. At present the reforms remain speculative and there is no proposed time-frame for their implementation. The position of divorcees remains highly controversial within the Church.

The conference also touched on the difficulty, particularly in eastern Germany, of recruiting people to work for Catholic institutions such as hospitals and kindergarten. At present the Church can only employ Roman Catholics. However Zollitsch called for work permits to be extended to non-Catholics and to those with “different lifestyles.” This would technically apply to homosexual people too. However Church labour reforms are unlikely to be introduced in the next three years.

While reform might be slow to come, the sentiments expressed at the conference are a signal to many that change is on the way. “I have never experienced a process of strategy development as transparent as this one,” said Thomas Berg, of the Baden-Württemberg Leadership Academy, who attended the conference.

Complete Article HERE!

April 17, 2013July 24, 2026

Pope Francis and the American Sisters

By MARY E. HUNT

The jury is still out on Pope Francis in a pontificate that may well be shaped by women. A month after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named Bishop of Rome, his Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Most Rev. Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, met with the presidents of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group of American nuns that had come under doctrinal scrutiny and been found wanting.

Archbishop Mueller claimed that he had “recently discussed the Doctrinal Assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the Assessment and the program of reform for this Conference of Major Superiors.” On the face of it, this means that Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, Bishop Leonard P. Blair, and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, who were named to enforce the terms the Congregation’s findings against the LCWR, are given carte blanche to do so. There may be more to this than meets the eye.

LCWR’s statement on the meeting includes just the facts and a dignified conclusion: “The conversation was open and frank. We pray that these conversations may bear fruit for the good of the Church.” Pundits are left to parse the rest.

It is early in a pontificate to make definitive judgments. Jesuits, I am informed, usually wait 100 days before making major decisions in their new positions. Perhaps Francis is observing the custom, hence some warrant for the bated-breath approach of some progressive pundits. As an inveterate pope watcher and advocate for justice for women, let me offer a few insights to guide future evaluation.

First, the early impressions of Francis are positive on several fronts. His much vaunted simple lifestyle, his decision to live in community, wear black shoes, pay the hotel bill he owed, ride the cardinals’ bus, worry about the well-being of the Swiss Guards, and forsake the white ermine-collared mozzetta (part of the papal wardrobe) all stand in deep contrast to the customs of his immediate predecessor popes. Although a reasonable person might conclude that the bar is hopelessly low in this regard.

In recent years, we were treated to cardinals wearing long trains (cappa magna). We endured stories of a sumptuous 80th birthday party for disgraced Boston Cardinal Bernard Law at one of Rome’s four-star restaurants. We know that Benedict and his colleagues were harsh on nuns whose lifestyles they would do well to emulate.

I expect a good deal more from Francis than the friendly but still largely cosmetic changes he has instituted. Gradualists will disagree with me, but I think it is time for Catholics to grow up and realize that royalty does not become us. The church is a service organization whose primary stakeholders are people who are poor. Their needs, and not the whims of pampered prelates, are the priority. Nothing less is acceptable. Raise the bar for heaven’s sake.

Second, on things that enthusiasts say are different in the months since the new pope took office: they are not all that different. Take, for example, the washing of two women’s feet at the Holy Thursday celebration. Granted, one of them was Muslim, and granted, the current pope may not be one for grand gestures (in which case they all would have been women in retribution), but is the liturgical act of washing two women out of 12 in 2000 years really the sign of the ‘feministization’ of the Roman Catholic Church? Not by my lights.

Rather than washing feet, I suggest looking Catholic women in the eye and saying, “You are my sister, equal in every way to me,” and then changing structures accordingly. To atone for centuries of discrimination against women will take more than four clean female feet. I despair of those who say, “It is a start,” to which I respond, “Obviously, but how pitifully inadequate.”

Naming a committee of nine Cardinals to advise Pope Francis on reforming the Curia and administering an unwieldy bureaucracy is also touted as a big change. However, this sort of kitchen cabinet looks to me like a kind of steering committee of the cardinals, hardly a revolutionary idea. Note the lack of lay people, women, and, God-forbid, young people on the list. I am hard pressed to think that certain cardinals did not have a pope’s ear before this. The Vatican’s spokesman emphasized the advisory nature of the group, further assuring that nothing has really changed. I am getting ready to rest my case though I long to be proven wrong.

Third, the meeting with the LCWR presidents needs to be read critically in light of the theo-politics of the moment. I can imagine that the Archbishop Mueller’s of this world are scrambling to figure out where to go next. This is a crowd accustomed to taking orders from the top, and when they cannot be sure just what the top wants they must be very nervous.

Nonetheless, I take the man at his word that he had some communication with the pope, which gave him the impression that it was fine to go full steam ahead with the hostile take-over of LCWR. What we do not know is the nature of the conversation. Maybe it was part of a long, soul-searching discussion into the wee hours of the morning by men who agonized over how to apologize sufficiently to the women for taking their time and impugning the reputations. More likely, it was a short, pedestrian mention by an overeager cleric who simply had to tell Su Santidad that he was planning to meet with the women. I can imagine that the Pope, distracted by concerns of poverty, ecocide, and war said “have a good meeting” which the Archbishop interpreted as license to continue with the oppression of women religious. Time will tell which it was, or something in between. For now, the bureaucracy grinds on with the women’s organization still under a cloud.

More telling, perhaps, will be the action or lack of it against women religious more broadly. The doctrinal investigation of LCWR was insult, but injury came in the form of an Apostolic Visitation (something akin to a convening a grand jury with the presumption that something is wrong) of virtually all of the communities whose leaders belong to LCWR.

A ray of hope is seen in the recent appointment of José Rodríguez Carballo, the leader of Franciscan men worldwide as the secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (memo to curial reformers: shorten the names of these outfits). That is the group that undertook the snooping into the lives and institutions of women religious. Archbishop Carballo, a member of a religious congregation himself, is expected to be a pastoral sort. But let optimists not pass over the fact that he serves under the Prefect Cardinal João Braz de Aviz who succeeded Cardinal Franc Rodé who started the whole operation.

If the Vatican under Pope Francis is smart, they will conveniently forget that this unfortunate chapter of church history ever took place. If they are wise, they will thank Mother Mary Clare Mallia, A.S.C.J., and her collaborators who did their bidding and move on, and apologize to the women’s communities for intruding on their space and time. Then I will say there is hope for this papacy. But if LCWR is left to twist in the wind, if the rest of the active communities that were subject to the indignity of a visitation are left hanging, can we say this pope is different from any other pope?

I urge that if women are not welcomed into all forms of ministry, decision making, and administration of the Roman Catholic Church in the very near future—I mean a year, max two, not a lifetime—then the jury find this pope as guilty as the rest in the ‘disappearance’ of half of the Catholic community. Maybe we will be surprised, and I will be the first one to rejoice that my skepticism was unwarranted.

Meanwhile, as one who is not accustomed to drinking the Kool-Aid, I suggest that the nuns lawyer up and all Catholic women go on with our ministries as we have been doing for decades, as if nothing has happened.

Complete Article HERE!

March 26, 2013July 20, 2026

My Prayer: Let Women Be Priests

By ROY BOURGEOIS

AFTER serving as a Roman Catholic priest for 40 years, I was expelled from the priesthood last November because of my public support for the ordination of women.

Catholic priests say that the call to be a priest comes from God. As a young priest, I began to ask myself and my fellow priests: “Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to women is not?” Isn’t our all-powerful God, who created the cosmos, capable of empowering a woman to be a priest?

Let’s face it. The problem is not with God, but with an all-male clerical culture that views women as lesser than men. Though I am not optimistic, I pray that the newly elected Pope Francis will rethink this antiquated and unholy doctrine.

I am 74 years old. I first felt God calling me to be a priest when I was serving in the Navy in Vietnam. I was accepted into the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in New York and was ordained in 1972. After working with the poor of Bolivia for five years, I returned to the United States. In my years of ministry, I met many devout Catholic women who told me about their calling to the priesthood.

Their eagerness to serve God began to keep me awake at night. As Catholics, we are taught that men and women are created equal: “There is neither male nor female. In Christ you are one” (Galatians 3:28).

While Christ did not ordain any priests himself, as the Catholic scholar Garry Wills has pointed out in a controversial new book, the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, stressed that the all-male priesthood is “our tradition” and that men and women are equal, but have different roles.

Their reasons for barring women from ordination bring back memories of my childhood in Louisiana. For 12 years I attended segregated schools and worshiped in a Catholic church that reserved the last five pews for blacks. We justified our prejudice by saying this was “our tradition” and that we were “separate but equal.” During all those years, I cannot remember one white person — not a teacher, parent, priest or student (myself included) — who dared to say, “There is a problem here, and it’s called racism.”

Where there is injustice, silence is complicity. What I have witnessed is a grave injustice against women, my church and our God, who called both men and women to be priests. I could not be silent. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against others, in the end, it is not the way of a loving God who created everyone of equal worth and dignity.

In sermons and talks, starting in the last decade, I called for the ordination of women. I even participated in the ordination of one. This poked the beehive of church patriarchy. In the fall of 2008, I received a letter from the Vatican stating that I was “causing grave scandal” in the Church and that I had 30 days to recant my public support for the ordination of women or I would be excommunicated.

Last month, in announcing his resignation, Pope Benedict said he made his decision after examining his conscience before God. In a similar fashion, in November 2008, I wrote the Vatican saying that human conscience is sacred because it always urges us to do what is right and what is just. And after examining my conscience before God, I could not repudiate my beliefs.

Four years went by, and I did not get a response from the Vatican. Though I had formally been excommunicated, I remained a priest with my Maryknoll Order and went about my ministry calling for gender equality in the Catholic Church. But last November, I received a telephone call from Maryknoll headquarters informing me that they had received an official letter from the Vatican. The letter said that I had been expelled from the priesthood and the Maryknoll community.

This phone call was one of the most difficult and painful moments of my life. But I have come to realize that what I have gone through is but a glimpse of what women in the church and in society have experienced for centuries.

A New York Times/CBS poll this month reported that 70 percent of Catholics in the United States believed that Pope Francis should allow women to be priests. In the midst of my sorrow and sadness, I am filled with hope, because I know that one day women in my church will be ordained — just as those segregated schools and churches in Louisiana are now integrated.

I have but one simple request for our new pope. I respectfully ask that he announce to the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world: “For many years we have been praying for God to send us more vocations to the priesthood. Our prayers have been answered. Our loving God, who created us equal, is calling women to be priests in our Church. Let us welcome them and give thanks to God.”

Complete Article HERE!

March 10, 2013July 20, 2026

Vatican spokesman brings flowers as women’s second-class status in church comes under scrutiny

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

The Vatican’s spokesman came to his press briefing Friday bearing flowers for female journalists to mark International Women’s Day. “On behalf of all of us men, congratulations and happy Women’s Day!” said a beaming Rev. Federico Lombardi.

A heartfelt gesture, to be sure, but one that came a day after an awkward acknowledgement: The upcoming election of the pope will be an all-male affair — except for the women who cook for, clean up after and serve the 115 cardinals who will pick the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, half of them women.

Lombardi’s admission came when a reporter noted that one of the video clips the Vatican had provided of preparations in the Sistine Chapel featured a woman at a sewing machine, making the skirting for the tables where cardinals will sit. Aside from the seamstress, the reporter inquired, how many women are involved in the conclave process?

Lombardi said the total number wouldn’t be known until all Vatican personnel involved in the conclave take their oath of secrecy. But he noted that several women work at the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel, where the cardinals will eat and sleep during the conclave, which begins on Tuesday.

For many observers, Lombardi’s comment was a tacit acknowledgment of what many consider women’s second-class status in Catholic Church, despite the fact they take a leading role in staffing Catholic schools, hospitals and other charitable institutions that are the cornerstone of the church’s social outreach.

“It is fine to sew and be a seamstress, but women have much to contribute to the political … health and well-being of the people on the planet,” said Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of the Roman Catholic Women Priests movement who says she was ordained a priest in 2008.

She and other members of the women’s ordination movement, as well as other dissident groups calling for greater participation of women in leadership positions in the church, have descended on Rome to try to have their voices heard in the papal election.

Lombardi noted that women’s role in the church was discussed Friday during the pre-conclave meetings that cardinals have attended this week to discuss the problems of the church and who should lead it.

He didn’t provide any details.

Complete Article HERE!

March 8, 2013July 20, 2026

Lesbian provisions prompt Catholic bishops to oppose Violence Against Women Act

File under: Cut Your Nose Off To Spite Your Face!

By Lauren Markoe

Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.

The act, to be signed into law by President Obama on Thursday (March 7), is intended to protect women from domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, and allows the federal government to spend money to treat victims and prosecute offenders.

But for the first time since the original act became law in 1994, it spells out that no person may be excluded from the law’s protections because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” — specifically covering lesbian, transgender and bisexual women.

That language disturbs several bishops who head key committees within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that deal with, among other issues, marriage, the laity, youth and religious liberty.

“These two classifications are unnecessary to establish the just protections due to all persons. They undermine the meaning and importance of sexual difference,” the bishops said in a statement released by the USCCB on Wednesday.

“They are unjustly exploited for purposes of marriage redefinition, and marriage is the only institution that unites a man and a woman with each other and with any children born from their union,” the statement continued.

The bishops also take issue with the lack of “conscience protection” for faith-based groups that help victims of human trafficking, an addition they sought after the Obama administration decided in 2011 to discontinue funding for a Catholic group that works with trafficking victims, many of whom were forced to work as prostitutes.

The administration instead funded other groups that, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, could provide a full range of women’s health services, including referrals for contraception or abortion, both of which the Catholic Church opposes.

“Conscience protections are needed in this legislation to ensure that these service providers are not required to violate their bona fide religious beliefs as a condition for serving the needy,” reads the statement of the bishops, who have supported previous versions of the act.

The statement was signed by:

— Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development

— Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage

— Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth

— Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

— Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the Committee on Migration

The bill passed the Senate 78 to 22 on Feb. 12, and the House passed it on Feb. 28 on a vote of 286 to 138, with no Democrats in opposition. Some Republicans objected to the bill for reasons similar to the bishops’.

Complete Article HERE!

March 8, 2013July 20, 2026

Former Catholics say rigid church forced them to leave

Opposition to female ordination and the prohibition on marriage for priests are among the factors causing an exodus from the Catholic Church.

By: Leslie Scrivener
Joanna Manning, former nun, award-winning religion teacher, advocate for the poor and activist-intellectual, was battle-weary.

For decades she had challenged the Catholic Church, arguing for women’s ordination, the right of priests to marry and accountability in repeated sexual abuse crises.

So Manning, once the public face of the reform movement in Catholic Canada and a persistent burr in the side of the church establishment, decamped a decade ago.

She is now a priest in the Anglican Church.

“I did go through a period of grieving for the loss of the vision I’d grown up with after Vatican II,” says Manning, now 69, referring to the 1962-1965 council to modernize the church. “But the church hierarchy had shut down and retreated . . .”

Critics say the Catholic Church hierarchy is disconnected from many if not most of its followers on issues of reform. Theologian Hans Kung writes that a recent poll in Germany shows 85 per cent of Catholics say priests should be allowed to marry, 79 per cent say divorced persons should have permission to remarry in the church and 75 per cent favour ordaining women.

“There’s a catastrophic shortage of priests, in Europe and in Latin America and Africa,” Kung wrote in the New York Times last week. “Huge numbers have left the church or gone into ‘internal emigration,’ especially in the industrialized countries.”

Around the world there are 49,000 parishes without a resident priest pastor.

The question, says Kung, author of the forthcoming book Can the Church Still Be Saved? , is whether cardinals, gathering to elect a new pope — likely in the next 10 days — will discuss progressive issues, or be “muzzled, as they were at the last conclave, in 2005, to keep them in line.”

In Canada many churches have closed and priests have been brought in from other countries to serve. The Catholic Register has reported that in the Archdiocese of Halifax, elderly priests have been brought out of retirement to serve in parishes.

In the sprawling diocese of London, 42 Catholic churches — including half those in Windsor — closed between 2006 and 2008. About one-third of the remaining parishes are “clustered” or share a priest. Declining attendance, the shortage of priests and the high costs of maintaining old buildings have all contributed to the shuttering, says Connie Paré, the diocese’s director of pastoral planning. “It was a very painful process.”

Speaking from her Bloor West home, Manning recalls of her break with Catholicism that she “had put too much energy into something in which I could see no future.” Her spiky white hair, jeans and purple jacket, worn with a clerical collar, contribute to her youthful appearance. “At my age I could no longer give my life over to resisting.”

She looked elsewhere for a place to practise her faith and found, about 10 years ago, San Lorenzo Anglican church on Dufferin St., which has a Spanish-speaking congregation.

“I’d been in exile and alien in my own church,” says Manning, who received horrific hate mail for her views. “Finally, I’d found a place where I was accepted for who I was without having to check anything at the door, including my brain.”

About five years after she joined the San Lorenzo community, Manning, who is single and has two adult sons and two grandchildren, was unprepared when her fellow parishioners suggested she consider the Anglican priesthood. “It was like I was surprised by the Spirit.”

Women have been ordained as Anglican priests in Canada since 1976.

Manning was ordained in 2011. More than half of those who attended the service were Catholic.

Among them was Ted Schmidt, retired teacher, author and former editor of the Catholic New Times. “This was a woman so far ahead of the institutional leadership she would be shot as the enemy,” says Ted Schmidt, a church progressive. “She’s a prophetic person.”

Manning now works as an assistant curate at two parishes, the inner city All Saints Sherbourne and All Saints Kingsway. She finds herself living with a “deep, abiding joy. A place where I can exercise all my gifts.”

She compares her present state to 10 years ago. “My energies were being drained by struggle. I felt a real outsider. I’d been rejected and was on the fringes of the church. Today my energy is so positive, I feel a flowering . . . at my age to have a second chance to do God’s work in the world.”

The Anglican Church has also attracted Catholic men who wanted to marry and raise families as much as they wanted to be priests. The Rev. Canon Joseph Asselin has been the rector of St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church in Oakville for the past 13 years.

He was raised Catholic — and was a student of Ted Schmidt — and was so committed that as a young person never once missed Sunday mass over 20 years. His mother continues to attend mass up to four times a week.

Asselin was steeped in Catholic social teaching, he says, and was taught to challenge the culture of consumerism and materialism. His experiences in the church were positive. “I was so happy to have healthy role models and mentors.”
But he could never consider being a priest in the Catholic Church. “This could never happen because I always wanted to be a husband and father. Probably, what I find the greatest joy in is being a father.”

He and his wife, Maureen, an elementary school teacher, have a teenage daughter and son, whose photos adorn his church office.

“The Catholic Church is turning its back on a lot of people who have a genuine calling to be priests, and they are the poorer for it,” says Asselin, 49. “No surprise,” he adds, “women can have the same calling.”
He counts many Catholics in his congregation and has married divorced Catholics who do not want to go through painful, lengthy annulments.

“I am able to relate to families here, with all the joys and challenges of being in a family,” he says.
He adds that the Anglican Church has options for men who feel the calling to live celibate lives as monks.

“When you see priests not leading sexually health lives, it saddens me, because they have been asked to a live a life that is not really for them.”

A radical option for Catholic women who feel called to the priesthood is to be ordained in the Catholic Church.
The price is excommunication.

Monica Kilburn-Smith, a 52-year-old Calgary hospice chaplain and mother of two, is a member of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests group, and was ordained in 2008. “The first priests and bishops in our movement were ordained by male bishops in full communion with Rome, who did this out of their own conviction/conscience that it was wrong for women to be refused this sacrament,” she explains.

Pope John Paul II said that the church has no authority to ordain women, using the argument that the first apostles were all men.

Later, Pope Benedict XVI declared that anyone taking in a woman’s ordination was committing a grave sin.

Kilburn-Smith’s St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic Faith Community is growing, she says, with 200 on the mailing list and up to 60 coming to a monthly service held in a United church. By the fall she hopes to say mass twice monthly.

“When women come to mass for the first time and see a woman in vestments and all that represents, on the surface and at deeper levels, it hits them and makes them cry,” says Kilburn-Smith. “It’s not about me; it’s seeing a woman as a person as a representative of God.”

The movement is not just about getting women into the priesthood, but also about a renewed church for the 21st century.

Why not leave the church and join a denomination that ordains women? “To leave women’s voices out just seems wrong,” Kilburn-Smith says.

“If you see something isn’t right, and you feel called in your own faith, why would you go? The Anglican Church changed because women were ordained. It didn’t come from the hierarchy.”

Complete Article HERE!

November 20, 2012June 30, 2026

Church of England general synod votes against women bishops

The general synod of the Church of England has voted narrowly against the appointment of women as bishops.

The measure was passed by the synod’s houses of bishops and clergy but was rejected by the House of Laity.

Supporters vowed to continue their campaign but it could be five years before a similar vote can be held.

Controversy had centred on the provisions for parishes opposed to women bishops to request supervision by a stand-in male bishop.

‘Bigger consensus’

The outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, spoke of his “deep personal sadness” after the vote.

He said: “Of course I hoped and prayed that this particular business would be at another stage before I left, and… it is a personal sadness, a deep personal sadness that that is not the case.

“I can only wish the synod and the archbishop all good things and every blessing with resolving this in the shortest possible time.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury after the vote on women bishops The outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury was in favour of allowing women bishops

Both the archbishop and his successor, the Rt Rev Justin Welby, the current Bishop of Durham, were in favour of a “yes” vote.

Canon Simon Killwick, vicar of Christ Church, Moss Side, and leader of the Catholic group in the synod, had spoken against the move and said the legislation was “flawed”.

He said it would be possible for the issue to return before the next synod is elected in 2015 if there were “early talks held between the various parties and a real effort to build a bigger consensus”.

Twenty years after the introduction of women priests, the issue has continued to divide traditionalists – among those on the Church’s evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings – from reformers.

Had the motion been backed by the synod, the proposed legislation would have made its way through Parliament before receiving royal assent.

It needed two-thirds majorities in each of the synod’s three houses.

The votes were 44 for and three against with two abstentions in the House of Bishops, 148 for and 45 against in the House of Clergy, and 132 for and 74 against in the House of Laity.

The vote in the House of Laity, at 64%, was just short of the required majority – six more “yes” votes were needed.

The House of laity is the largest element of the General Synod and is made up of lay members of the church elected by its 44 dioceses.

The decision came at the end of a day of debate by supporters and opponents – and a 12-year legislative process.

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Graham James, said: “It is very disappointing that the vote was lost so narrowly.”

Campaign group Women and the Church (Watch) said the outcome was a “devastating blow for the Church of England and the country”.

The Rev Rachel Weir, chairwoman of Watch, said “This is a tragic day for the Church of England after so many years of debate and after all our attempts at compromise.

The Right Reverend Graham James: “Obviously it is very disappointing that the vote was lost”

“Despite this disappointing setback, Watch will continue to campaign for the full acceptance of women’s gifts of leadership in the Church’s life.”

Watch said bishops would need to act promptly to offer pastoral support in the coming weeks to women clergy and others who felt devastated by the decision.

Writing in the Guardian, Lucy Winkett, who would have been in line to become a woman bishop, said the synod was “detonating its credibility with contemporary Britain”.
Emergency meeting

But synod member Susie Leafe said the outcome was because of faults in the legislation.

She said: “There were a lot of places along the way that we could have had a measure in front of us that wouldn’t have been voted down, and it’s very sad that this was able to go on without us facing the reality of the situation.”

The Catholic Group in General Synod said “mediation and conciliation are needed so that new legislation can be framed to provide fairly for all members of the Church of England”.

Zoe Ham, Church Society: “I am happy that the legislation in its form today has been rejected”

The group said in a statement: “We regret the synod was put in the position whereby draft legislation failed at final approval because it was unclear and unfair in its provision for those who, in conscience, are unable to accept the ministry of women as bishops or priests.

“The Catholic Group calls on the House of Bishops to reconvene the talks started in the summer between representatives of different groups, chaired by Bishop Justin Welby.

“The Catholic Group is committed to playing a full part in the process of achieving good legislation to enable us all to move forward together in mission and service to the nation.”

Traditionalist campaign group Together 4ward said: “We are reflecting on and praying about the outcome of general synod, and will make a fuller statement in due course.

“We are, however, pleased that synod has chosen not to pass the Women Bishops Measure in its current form, which we believe would not have allowed the Church to go forward together.”

The House of Bishops will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning following the decision, a Church spokesman said.

Complete Article HERE!

November 20, 2012June 30, 2026

Bourgeois DISMISSED!

A Roman Catholic order in New York says the Vatican has dismissed a priest for his involvement in the movement to ordain women.

A statement from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers says the Rev. Roy Bourgeois was let go by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It says he “participated in the invalid ordination of a woman” in 2008. The woman was a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

Church teaching holds that the priesthood is reserved for men because Christ chose only men as apostles.

Maryknoll said the dismissal means Bourgeois is no longer a priest.

In a statement released Tuesday, Bourgeois said he was compelled by conscience to speak out. He says the issue of women’s equality in the church cannot be dismissed.

Former Maryknoll head decries Vatican interference in Bourgeois case

By Joshua J. McElwee

A former head of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers has expressed support for Roy Bourgeois, saying the longtime peace activist and priest has a “deep love for the church” and his dismissal from the order by the Vatican represents meddling in Maryknoll’s affairs.

In his first statement since the dismissal, Bourgeois said Tuesday, “The Vatican and Maryknoll can dismiss me, but they cannot dismiss the issue of gender equality in the Catholic Church.”

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has “interfered with the integrity of the society,” said Maryknoll Fr. John Sivalon, who served as the order’s superior general from 2002 to 2008.

“It makes it very hard to consider how we talk about mission and visioning for the future and being open to the Spirit, when in fact we’re being dictated to that this is what we need to follow,” Sivalon told NCR Tuesday. “And so I think there is a question about the society itself and how the integrity of the society has been affected by this.”

The Vatican congregation dismissed Bourgeois, a member of Maryknoll for 45 years who had come under scrutiny for his support of women’s ordination, from the order in October, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers announced in a press release Monday.

In his statement responding to his dismissal, Bourgeois said his expulsion from Maryknoll “is very difficult and painful.”

“When there is an injustice, silence is the voice of complicity. My conscience compelled me to break my silence and address the sin of sexism in my Church,” Bourgeois writes in the statement, which was posted Tuesday afternoon at the website of the Women’s Ordination Conference.

“My only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male power and domination in the Catholic Church,” Bourgeois wrote.

Sivalon said Bourgeois supports women’s ordination “out of a very deep love for the church.”

“That love for the church just is expressed in his belief that the hierarchical part of the church is becoming less and less relevant in the world and to changes in the world,” he said. “It’s probably with profound sadness that he himself looks upon how that hierarchy has moved away. I think it’s just a sign of his love that he has taken the position.”

Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer acting on Bourgeois’ behalf, said Monday neither he nor Bourgeois was aware of the full scope of the Vatican’s move until seeing the press release from Maryknoll on the matter.

Maryknoll’s membership was first informed in the same press release, and the society has not made available the letter from the Vatican congregation dismissing Bourgeois, Sivalon said.

Requests for comment on the matter Tuesday were not immediately returned by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Bourgeois first learned of the news Monday afternoon in a phone call from a Maryknoll priest who had called to ask Bourgeois to come up to the order’s New York headquarters for a meeting, Doyle said.

Bourgeois asked the priest the purpose of the meeting, and Doyle said the priest replied that the order had received a letter from the Vatican congregation dismissing Bourgeois both from the order and the priesthood.

Bourgeois then asked if the society would hold off on making an announcement about the matter until he could meet with them and see a copy of the letter, Doyle said. They refused.

“Roy did not see the content of this news release until I printed a copy up and sent it to him by fax,” Doyle said.

The Vatican’s removal of Bourgeois, Sivalon said, “raises questions about how open the society can be to explain avenues of being in mission in different ways.”

Prior to the congregation’s dismissal of the priest, “the society was moving toward a much more Kingdom-centered, Reign of God-centered kind of understanding of its mission and service to that, and this raises questions about it,” said the former superior general.

“My own position would be of support for women’s ordination and opening up ministry to others,” Sivalon said, “and I think it would be the position of probably many in leadership in Maryknoll.”

“I think all of us, looking at what’s happening in the church today, think that it’s just becoming less and less relevant and less and less open to the possibility that the Spirit is speaking through the world and speaking through others,” Sivalon said. “I think people that know Roy would still look upon him as a priest and respect him as a priest, no matter what the congregation has done.”

Bourgeois’ role in Maryknoll had been in question since his presence at the ordination of Roman Catholic Womanpriest Janice Sevre-Duszynska in August 2008.

Shortly after that ordination, Bourgeois was notified by the Vatican congregation that he had incurred a latae sententiae, or automatic, excommunication for his participation at the event.

Maryknoll asked Bourgeois to publicly recant his support of women’s ordination, telling the priest in a March 2011 letter he faced laicization and removal from the order if he did not comply.

In a series of letters and interviews since then, Bourgeois has said he could not comply with the request for reasons of conscience.

Maryknoll’s leadership took a vote on removing Bourgeois from the order in the spring. While the order would confirm at the time that a vote had taken place, it would not comment on its outcome.

Doyle told NCR at the time that Maryknoll Fr. Mike Duggan, the U.S. regional superior of the order, informed Bourgeois of the vote, which was a split decision. Doyle said Duggan told him two council members voted in favor of dismissal and three members abstained.

Monday’s statement from Maryknoll states that Bourgeois’ “disobedience and preaching against the teaching of the Catholic Church about women’s ordination led to his excommunication, dismissal and laicization.”

“With this parting, the Maryknoll Society warmly thanks Roy Bourgeois for his service to mission and all members wish him well in his personal life,” the statement concludes. “In the spirit of equity and charity, Maryknoll will assist Mr. Bourgeois with this transition.”

Doyle said he and Bourgeois would discuss the possibilities for appeal of the decision once they are able to see a copy of the letter from the Vatican congregation.

“As Catholics, we profess that God created men and women of equal worth and dignity,” Bourgeois wrote in his statement Tuesday.

“As priests, we profess that the call to the priesthood comes from God, only God. Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to women is not? The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, our Church and our loving God who calls both men and women to be priests.”

Several canon lawyers contacted by NCR for background on the issues surrounding dismissal of a priest from a religious order said it is unclear how the Vatican congregation was able to act on the matter. See: Canon lawyers: Vatican’s role ambiguous in Bourgeois’ removal for more.

Complete Article HERE!

November 4, 2012June 30, 2026

Rev. Bourgeois offers apology to women barred from priesthood in Catholic Church

By Wes Woods

The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, who has been criticized by the Catholic Church for his support of women’s ordination, discussed his views Thursday night at Claremont Graduate University.
“I really want to begin with an apology,” Bourgeois said during a panel discussion.

“To all the women in the Catholic Church and also I think in society for taking so long to see this injustice. To see the root of our church’s teaching all about sexism.

“No excuses, I was asleep, I think, for many years and one of the many participating in what we call prejudice. I’ve come to see after much reflection that in life prejudice is our greatest enemy. We learn prejudice. And we can unlearn it.”

Bourgeois was part of a group that also featured Gina Messina-Dysert, visiting assistant professor in the department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University; Rosemary Radford Ruether, visiting professor of religion; and Jane Via of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

Via said she agreed with the sentiment expressed by Ruether that the Catholic Church was much larger than the Vatican, which has condemned the idea of women being ordained.

“The Vatican is a tiny, tiny group of very powerful elderly, mostly Caucasian males,” Via said.

“That’s who they are. But the power they exert, over women and children, especially in non-industrialized societies worldwide is enormous. Women will never be able to push their way into that power structure without becoming ordained first,” she said.

Via said she will not walk away from the Catholic Church despite her disagreements.

“My personal attitudes about that are that I am intelligent, articulate, I’m well-educated and if every voice like mine leaves the Catholic Church there will be no one left to speak for women,” she said.

The packed audience inside the Albrecht Auditorium cheered Via’s comment.

Bourgeois said the issue of women’s ordination was an important one.
“Who are we as men to say to women our call is authentic but your call is not?” Bourgeois said.

“Who are we as men to reject God’s call to women to the priesthood? What arrogance. And what I saw in our church’s teaching at its very root was that sin of sexism. And as we all know, sexism, like racism, like homophobia and all those other forms of discrimination is wrong. It’s wrong,” Bourgeois said.

He said such a rule is an injustice against the church.

“And of course an injustice against our loving God who calls both men and women into the priesthood,” Bourgeois said.

“What do we do? You and I when we see an injustice with such clarity. What we do know is silence is the voice of complicity. In order to sleep at night, I had to break my silence.”

Church teaching holds that the priesthood is reserved for men, since Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of women’s ordination say there is no theological basis for excluding women from the priesthood, that there is evidence of women priests in the early church and that the Vatican’s ban is purely sexist.

Complete Article HERE!