Catholic women priests - a theological break through on its way!?

"Few people will have noticed that a subtle shift has taken place in the central Catholic Teaching Authority with regard to the reasons for which women are being excluded from the ordained ministries.

In the document Inter Insigniores of 1975 a number of arguments had already been abandoned, arguments favoured by earlier theologians. Among these we find:

* Women may not touch sacred objects . (for example: Richard of Middleton)
* It is not becoming for women to have the clerical tonsure. (for example: Henricus de Sergusio)
* Women are not created in the image of |God. (for example: Huguccio, Antonius de Butrio)
* Women are less intelligent than men and highly unreliable. (for example: John Duns Scotus § 19). This last reason, incidentally, was still part of the Church's official Canon law until 1915.

Over the past 25 years some of the arguments of Inter Insigniores itself are now seemingly being ignored.

Reading the documents in which our present Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, has been involved, we find that little weight is attached to reasons such as:

* Paul did not allow women to teach men (1 Timothy 2,11-15).
* Women should be subject to men ( 1 Corinthians 11,2-XVI).
* Only a man is a perfect human being and can thus properly represent Christ (Thomas Aquinas).
* Christ was incarnated as a man, in fact maleness is an essential ingredient of the Incarnation in God's plan of redemption, an argument Pope John Paul II was fond of (Mulieris Dignitatem § 26).

In documents of the last 25 years Pope Benedict XVI no longer mentions such reasonings. Rather he narrows his focus. He reduces the argument simply to three central key assertions:

1. Jesus appointed only men as apostles.
2. In doing so Jesus established masculinity in the ministry as a permanent norm that has to be followed by the Church.
3. This norm of having a male ministry has been confirmed by the constant and universal Teaching of the Church throughout Tradition.

In short we may say that, according to Pope Benedict XVI, Christ established a masculine order of bishops and priests; and that the Church of all times and places has constantly affirmed this as a norm through its practice and teaching.

So what to make of these central assertions by Pope Benedict XVI? We can do no better than briefly examine the validity of each of the three pegs on which he now hangs the argument."

Read the whole article here.

Read more...

Should Catholic women be ordained?

I asked that question in a quick poll recently. 87 persons answered before it closed. And the result was as follows.

***

Yes, absolutely - to all ministries! 51 (58%)

Yes, but only as deacons. 10 (11%)

No way! 22 (25%)

I have no idea... 4 (4%)

***

69% are thus positive to ordination of women (to all ministries or as deacons). While only 22% are strongly against. And 4% are uncertain.

So this little survey shows similar numbers as other surveys. The result is usually 60-80% in favor of ordination of women (as priests).

Read more...

Intervju med en av de kvinnliga prästerna

Några utdrag ur en intervju med Barbara Zeman, en av de kvinnor som vigdes i Chicago nyligen.

***

ZEMAN: I have had a call to minister to minister to God's people and to be a minister, a priest, most of my life.

/.../

Midway through the ceremony, Zeman and the other women are called up to the altar and lie face down in prostration before the cross. Zeman says that's when she felt a holy presence.

ZEMAN: There was a moment that just felt like light and spirit and delight and joy was entering the room and it stayed for the rest of the ordination.

/.../

There are several organizations that ordain women as priests. But the ordination of women by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests has stirred up the most controversy because they claim full apostolic succession. Apostolic succession refers to the connection of every ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church back to the first disciples of Jesus. Because the women who started this movement were ordained by a male bishop, they claim that succession. Newly ordained priest Barbara Zeman says this is the reason she was drawn to the Roman Catholic Women Priests.

ZEMAN: We really are coming down in the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. We are not a movement outside of the Church. We are inside the Church.

The ongoing ordination of women prompted the Vatican to release a decree in May. It said that anyone who attempted to ordain a women, and any woman who attempted ordination is automatically excommunicated. A spokesperson for the Chicago Archdiocese echoes that decree stating, "Anyone who simulates the sacrament of holy orders is automatically excommunicated." But Zeman doesn't see it that way.

ZEMAN: I don't see myself as excommunicated because I did not excommunicate myself. I stepped forward, following my conscience and following Jesus.

Här finns hela intervjun.

Read more...

Open letter to the Pope - about women ordinations

Dear Brother in Christ, Pope Benedict XVI,


I write to you on behalf of Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who, as you know, is facing excommunication in a few days from now, because he is following his conscience on the issue of women ordinations.

I don't know him personally, but he feels like a dear brother. I've (through the internet), heard his homily at the ordination he attended, and I've read a few articles, and his letter in response to the excommunication letter. And his words are really touching my heart, it's very healing to hear a priest speak openly about the injustice he feels is being done to so many Catholic women with a call to ministry within the Church... I'm grateful to him for his courageous witness - and I wish that all other priests and bishops around the world who believe that God wants to show the Church that this call is indeed genuine, would also dare to speak up for change. A change that would be strongly welcomed by many Catholics in our days, and especially among young people (even priest candidates in Rome, as an anonymous open letter from one of them recently shows, I'm sure you must have seen it). Besides, this is nothing new... Women served in the early Church...

Fr. Roy was ordained the same year as I was born, and he's been serving the Church all this time. Amazing thought! That's more than I've done... But I could have been a priest for many years, as I felt the call already at the age of 14. I love the Church profoundly, and would love to serve as a priest... Like so many other Catholic women. And like several of our woman Saints, among those Thérèse of Lisieux, my patron Saint, who once led me to the Church. I attended the festive ceremony in 1997 at St. Peter's Square, when she was declared a Doctor of the Church. How that must have surprised her, and made her smile in heaven! "Little" Thérèse among all those distinguished old male teachers of the Church...! I'm happy that she now has this position, since the Church must listen carefully to all its theological Doctors.

Thérèse tells us openly about her call to be a priest, a call that didn't leave her even when she felt death approaching. She handled the hosts with lots of love as a sacristan, while she thought about celebrating Mass. She asked her sisters to shave a tonsure on her head, and she united herself in prayer with the young priest missionaries she would have liked to follow. And she said that she was happy to die - so that she didn't need to suffer the pain of not being ordained at the time she would have been ordained - if she had just been a man... There are numerous witnesses who knew her who confirms this. I find it amazing that her writings haven't been censured. And they speak right into our times.

I often think that it's like the body of the Church is jumping ahead on just one leg. While she (!) could be dancing and rejoicing and move much faster and more graciously than now, showing the world who God is (both feminine and masculine), if she would use both her legs, not just the male one. It's as if the Church body has made herself crippled, although she's actually whole. She's strangely refusing to use one half of her body in ministry...

Excommunication is a similarly odd phenomena within our Church body. So odd to see her shutting off her own limbs from the powerful blood flow of the holy Communion!

And not just any limbs. It's the prophetic limbs that are often shut off. Those who were Jesus' own didn't understand him... It seems to be the same today for his followers. But they'll keep speaking until their last breath - prophets can't be silenced... This is their mission: to show the Church what's missing! To speak soft words where they're needed, and sharp words where they're required.

I'd like to humbly ask a few burning questions:

Who do you think Jesus would excommunicate?

Would He cut off living branches from the tree?

What is easier: to change a tiny paragraph in the Canon law which doesn't correspond with the Gospel message and Jesus' way of treating women and men equally - or keep hurting the Body of Christ again and again?

Where in the world can you find a mother who would stop giving some of her children food? And what mother would forbid only her girls to prepare food and serve it to their siblings? Shouldn’t the Church Mother act as good as these earthly mothers?

Excommunications are actually getting the opposite result than they probably are meant to give. Trying to get rid of one after the other will only put this matter (women ordinations) even more on the agenda. It's so much better to communicate than to excommunicate!

I've read the most recent homily by your preacher, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa. He speaks about women in it, like several times during the passed years, which I actually encouraged him to do when I once met him. I'm happy for this, because it's really needed. But I wish the urgent need for women in the heart of the Church would be as visible and clear. We need to hear the perspectives also of women in homilies. We need them serving at the Eucharistic table, as well as in the confessional. Many (both women and men) say it would be so much easier to confess if the priest was a woman... Both men and women are needed to make the priestly ministry as beautiful and complete as it's meant to be... Both reflect the image of God - together....

The wonderful Pope, John XXIII, didn't live long as a Pope, but long enough to initiate revival, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I've heard that you attended the Council as one of its most brilliant progressive theologians... You quoted Karl Rahner (who btw has written at depth about the priest-poet, well worth reading), when he said something like: "The dogma is no package, well wrapped and tightly tied up, but an open window."

I wish I could reawaken some of that youthful glow within your heart, bring fresh air through the Vatican doors, and open all the windows widely... (Well, the risen Jesus knew how to walk also through closed doors, behind which frightened apostles were sitting...!)

Now it's time to listen in deep prayer to what the Holy Spirit is repeatedly saying to the Church at present. God is calling so many women to serve... Please, consider to receive and embrace this gift...! It's for the good of the whole Church, ultimately the whole world...

And please don't let my brother get excommunicated, or any other of my brothers and sisters who dare to say what they, and so many silent Catholics, actually think! Fr. Roy is just the kind of priest that is most appreciated and needed among the faithful!

As he has spoken courageously - I can't remain silent.

I love my Mother, the Church, and say all this out of love for her...

Catholicity is all about Communion and union, so when one limb is suffering - all the others are also suffering (if they're healthy and thus able to feel compassionate). I suffer immensely by the thought of others getting excommunicated. I've spent some sleepless nights now, praying about this, actualized by what Fr. Roy is going through. And led by holy inspiration, I got the idea to ask, like Maximiliam Kolbe, the Saint, who stood right in front of a man who is now in my parish and who witnessed his words: "may I take his place?"

I wish to stand in solidarity with all those who are excluded and marginalized in our society and in the Church, I think that's what being a Christian and following Jesus is about, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and cry with those who cry, to ultimately give up one's life, and everything that one holds most dear... And the Church is my life, my home, my everything... I would never want to be without the Eucharist - that would be to starve spiritually. I imagine it's pretty much the same for Fr. Roy. But if someone has to be sacrificed to keep up the present human rules and regulations, then don't excommunicate someone who is a "father" of many... You may punish me instead...

And by now you may perhaps wonder who I am... Maximiliam Kolbe got the same question. He answered: "I'm a Catholic priest."

And I'm just a simple Catholic lay person, an artist and theologian, a priest only at heart and not through ordination. I haven't broken any single Church rule, but I've spoken freely, by inspiration and out of conscience, when asked what I believe. I feel that unity among Christians and within the Catholic Church (in spite of different opinions - we share what is most important after all: our faith, a sacred gift from God), is part of my mission, and thus I find it very hard to stand injustice or prejudices. I wish to see a renewed Church where everyone is welcome, a Church where no one is shut out... And if someone is threatened to be excluded, I must stand up for him or her.

To something else - but still connected to this. I've heard that you love cats - we have that in common! As you might have noticed, they're very free and independent creatures. But they stay where they're given food and are treated well. They're also fascinated by prayer, and come and lay down purring in one's lap during silent prayer if one allows them to... A cat I know once ended up sitting and looking intensely at my icons... I wonder what he saw through those heavenly windows...

I've also heard that sheep need no fences, they stay where there's fresh water.

And we Christians, who are drawn to the Source of Life itself, who could draw us away from it? If there's love in the Church - and Love has indeed its dwelling place among us - then there's no need for fences...

God gives us this beautiful call to freedom, and invites us to use all our gifts and talents. The Gospel yesterday speaks about these talents - everyone’s talents need to be recognized and developed. Also those of women with a call to serve. Where else should we go? Which other source should we drink from? Is it really right of the Church to bury our gifts....?

If theology at some point turns out not to correspond with what we know about God - it needs to be reconsidered and eventually rewritten. I’ve studied all the arguments against women ordinations in detail, and I’ve found that none of them is solid enough to build any teachings upon. It’s rather the opposite way - they all fall down like a pile of cards if they’re slightly touched. I thus hope you will welcome and reopen theological discussions about this in the Vatican, through inviting theologians from all over the world who has studied the question at depth - both women and men, and both those who based on their studies are positive to change, and those who aren’t, and they should all have the right to speak and vote…

I'll end this letter by a poem that I dedicated to the previous Archbishop of St. Louis, Raymond Burke when he excommunicated my sister in Christ, Sr. Louise Lears, whom I don't know in person either (but, as you know, lives amazingly touches those of others also at a great distance). It somehow fits also in this sad situation.

With all due respect, much love in Christ, and with fervent prayers that you'll intervene to make a good and just decision regarding Fr. Roy...

Your little sister,

Charlotte Thérèse
(in Sweden)


~ Joyous criminals ~


If it's a crime to be convinced
that women may be ordained,
then I'm a criminal too,
and you'll have to put me in jail,
where I'd be accompanied
by numerous such convicts.


If it's a crime to attend
a woman's ordination,
then, please, take me to all
such crime scenes in the world,
so I may share that heavenly joy,
before you put on
dogmatic handcuffs
and striped chasubles
on all the attendants.


I'll then rejoice as an
unofficial prisoner chaplain
among my partners in crime.
We'll attend to those
who are innocently imprisoned,
by experts on Canon law.


And filled with God's grace
we'll sing all night long
until the prison gates
are opened by angels
so we may march out
on the bright fields of freedom,
still joyfully singing,
since God gave us a sign
that even the blind could see.


S/He Who Is
is walking with us


***

Update:

I've now written another letter to the Pope - about Church renewal.

Read more...

Roman Catholic Womenpriests 2002-2008

Det har nu gjorts en video om deras ganska så korta men händelserika historia hittills.

Här är kortversionen på 16 minuter (tyvärr stannar den mitt i Fr. Roy Bourgeois predikan).

Se därför gärna den längre versionen på 28 minuter, för hans predikan är det absolut bästa i videon!

Det är fortfarande några dar kvar tills han blir exkommunicerad - så än finns det en chans att skriva till påven eller någon av de andra som beslutar om det.

Read more...

Ny enkät - vigning av katolska kvinnor

Så var det dags för en ny snabbfråga. Enkäten pågår fram till 1:a advent. Missa inte att rösta!

Read more...

Brev från en ung katolsk prästseminarist i Rom

Fick just läsa följande fantastiska brev apropå aktionen nyligen (där de som lämnade över skrivelsen om kvinnliga diakoner till påven även delade ut broschyrer om kvinnliga präster på Petersplatsen - och blev arresterade flera gånger av italiensk polis p.g.a. detta).

Läste brevet med tårar i ögonen. Tack, Gud, för de yngsta prästkandidaterna....!!!

Nedan är ett utdrag - läs hela brevet här.

***

"I am a seminarian studying for the priesthood in Rome. You do not know who I am, but I met you in Rome. I was dressed casually and not wearing my clerical clothes. You handed me one of the WOC cards while I was crossing the street. I simply said thank you and kept on walking, not realizing what it was for at first.

I must tell you that I was so very impressed by how you, Erin Hanna, and the other women from WOC made your presence known in Rome in such a positive way. It is important for you to understand that your efforts were a great success, more than you realize. WOC has been out of Rome for almost two weeks now and you are still being talked about at my seminary and I am still seeing your cards and pamphlets around the city. You inspired many women and men about their faith and women's equality within our Church.

I will tell you in complete confidence that many of the young seminarians between the ages of 21-35 years old support (privately, of course) the ordination of Catholic women in the Church. It is mostly the older seminarians and priests that have a lot of difficulty with such an idea.

What impressed me and other seminarians about your group's presence in Rome is the fact that you led the protests in a very respectful and peaceful manner, yet you were very effective and became "the talk of the town" so to speak.

I can provide you with information about the topics of conversation in the seminary, including the ordination of women. I will say that many of the older priests and seminarians are truly afraid of WOC and their continued success in our Church and culture, mainly because they do not like change. However, many unfortunately, also still hold some very sexist views of women.

One thing I've learned from growing up with sisters is to respect women -- ALWAYS -- and I certainly do. I believe that many women would make excellent, holy priests in our Catholic Church. The gift, talents and charisma that many women could bring to the office of priesthood are innumerable."

***

Uppdatering:

Följande är vad Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) gjorde i Rom (ur deras nyhetsbrev):

"Generated international media coverage of the women's ordination movement in more than 100 media outlets around the world, including Associated Press, International Herald Tribune, Univision, and the major press agencies in Germany and Italy. News of our campaign reached Austria, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Nicaragua, the U.K., Vatican City and more (see below for details).

Distributed over 1,000 stickers and over 600 fliers to visitors in St. Peter's Square, including many priests and women religious.

Raised public awareness around Rome and in Vatican City, by carrying our banner and by wearing "Ordain Women" t-shirts in nine languages.

Educated Catholics about the archaeological sites depicting women's leadership in early Christianity by arranging a slide show presentation and organizing a tour of the sites.

Throughout the week, we and our coalition partners became well-known in Vatican City. We were highly visible, holding a banner stating "Ordain Catholic Women," wearing our purple stoles, and sporting "Ordain Women" buttons and t-shirts in English, French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. All along our route, we handed out fliers in six languages citing the reasons to ordain women. Hundreds of women and men smiled and nodded to us, and we educated many about WOC and the need for women's ordination.

Our conversations with Roman Catholics from around the world reinforced what we knew all along - that a majority of Catholics the world over support women's ordination. We engaged in noteworthy dialogue with three young seminarians, who by the end of our conversation, agreed that women's ordination should at the very least be open for discussion.

/.../

WOC's campaign succeeded beyond our expectations, and our presence reverberated throughout the streets of Rome. On our final day in St. Peter's Square handing out literature on women's ordination, Erin and I were detained one final time. When we told the Italian police officer that we were headed back to the U.S. the following day, he shouted, "Thanks be to God!" We took it as a compliment. Our hard work had paid off, as the Vatican had taken notice of our campaign."

Read more...