ALBUQUERQUE, NM, UNITED STATES, December 1, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Father Anne, a noted advocate for women’s ordination, calls Pope Francis to meet with women called to priesthood, following the release of the BBC documentary The Women Fighting to be Priests on December 3. While Pope Francis recently reiterated the doctrine of a male-only priesthood in an interview with America Magazine, Father Anne observes that he has not yet held an audience with women called to priesthood. “If Pope Francis is to honor the integrity of the Synod on Synodality that he himself has launched, then he must set the example and be willing to hear and pray with the stories of women called to be priests,” says Father Anne. “This is what it means to be a listening Church that allows the Holy Spirit to teach.”
When asked why women’s ordination matters, Father Anne explains, “The Roman Catholic Church is one of the most powerful institutions in the world. It is the largest nongovernmental provider of education and healthcare, it is one of the largest landowners, and it has permanent status as an observer state in the United Nations. Whether you are Catholic or not, you are affected by the exclusion of women from priesthood. It is in the interest of the entire world that the Roman Catholic Church model equality with women.” Father Anne challenges Church doctrine by boldly claiming the symbolic power of the traditional male priesthood. She wears the Roman collar, practices celibacy, uses the Roman Missal for her Masses, and has chosen the title Father. The sole difference between Father Anne and any male priest is that she has a female body. “I unmask the untruth that the male form alone is proper to ordination,” she says. To raise awareness about this issue, Father Anne recently completed a short tour of colleges, including Villanova University, Loyola Marymount University, and College of Wooster. She hopes to tour extensively next year under #FatherAnneInTheVan. Father Anne believes the pathway for transformation is present. “In addition to millions of lay people, there are thousands of vowed religious and ordained who believe that women should be ordained as priests, yet they remain silent,” explains Father Anne. “If they come forward with public statements during the synodal process, this would undeniably force the world’s bishops to confront with the troubling lack of integrity that underpins a male-only priesthood.” KC Mancebo | Clamorhouse +1 424-334-1312 [email protected] On Saturday June 11 I had the opportunity to march in the Albuquerque Pride Parade. I was lucky enough--thanks to the pastor of St. Paul Lutheran (where I hold my Masses)—to jump onboard with the St. Timothy’s Lutheran, a welcoming and inclusive community. We gathered on Friday night to share pizza and decorate the float, only to turn right around early the next morning to get in line and wait.
I knew it was going to be hot. Blazing. Triple digits. On tarmac. In clerics. But I did not let that deter me: this was too important to miss. I put much prayer into my sign. I wanted to harness the symbolic power of my priesthood in hopes of bringing even a touch of healing to this community that has been--and continues to be--much maligned by the Church. The front of the sign said, “I apologize on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.” The back proclaimed, “God rejoices in you.” After hours of hydrating and socializing with the fabulous St. Tim’s community, the parade finally began to move. Suddenly, I was nervous. I realized I didn’t know how people were going to react. Truthfully, I never know how people are going to react to me—a female priest ordained in violation of Church doctrine. This uncertainty is something I am growing used to expecting. But the feeling I was experiencing at this moment was different: I was—as a priest—intentionally owning the wrongdoing of the Catholic Church’s treatment of the LGBTQ community. I was taking responsibility for the institution and the pain it has caused so many individuals, families, children. I was a little scared. I took a deep breath: whatever happened, I would welcome it, for this was a critical ministry. People of all ages, backgrounds, genders lined the street. The spirit was pure joy: people were delighting in one another, in the parade, in the sunny summer day. As eyes fell upon my sign, I received all kinds of reactions. Many offered lively cheers. Some positively guffawed, while others were tickled with laughter. A few had genuine tears in their eyes. Many, especially girls and women, took photos. One teenage girl sprang from the crowd to give me a bear hug. I whispered in her ear, “It’s not true. It’s not true. God loves you.” An adorable young lesbian couple yelled out, “We want to get married!” I shouted, “Call me!” A few exclaimed, “About time!” In those moments when I knew had the crowd, I would lock eyes with them and turn the sign over to point to the second message, “God rejoices in you.” They shouted in return, “Yes!”, or touched their hearts and smiled, or exclaimed, “God rejoices in everybody! Everybody!” Every response moved me. But the response that touched me most deeply—the response that was most common from the start of the parade to its conclusion—was the heartfelt “Thank you!” It was shouted over and over and over again by people of all genders. This community that has been so intensely marginalized and hurt was abundantly gracious, generous, resilient. My experience at the Pride Parade reminded me of what I already knew deep in my bones: most people simply want to be accepted and cherished exactly as they are. When they are hurt, they just want that hurt to be acknowledged, and they want a commitment that things will change for the better—for their children, for their communities, for their people. It is quite simple: admit you are wrong, apologize, and learn. Now I am just one priest who made one *tiny* gesture of apology. Imagine—imagine!—the torrent of grace that would descend upon the earth if the Roman Catholic Church truly took responsibility for the hurt it has caused the LGBTQ community. The entire world would be uplifted by this reconciliation, and I venture to say it would give all anti-LGBTQ movements, governments, and organizations pause—perhaps enough for them to re-evaluate their current understanding of human sexuality. After all that New Mexico sun I ended up with a ferocious migraine that knocked me out for the next 16 hours. I decided to enter into the experience as penance. In comparison to the insults, harassment, violence, and even death that the LGBTQ community has endured at the hands of Christianity, the very least I could do was suffer a little migraine. And so I did, giving it up to God as prayer for a world where all God’s people are celebrated as the sacred expressions of God’s Spirit that they are. On Ash Wednesday I worshipped at the Episcopal Cathedral. Since I am not welcome in my own tradition, I took the opportunity to revisit the place of my ordination. I hadn’t been back since that day in October, and I was wondering how it would feel to return.
The space was every bit as beautiful as I remembered, and the service was superb. The full choir was vested and sang with reverence. The Dean wore a cope and gave a thought-provoking homily as she radiated with joy. The Bishop, with crozier in hand, presided. As beautiful as it was, I felt profoundly sad through the service. It was so very similar to the Roman Catholic tradition—the vestments, the order of the service, the music. Yet, it was like being at a best friend’s house when more than anything I just wanted to be at home. I did my best to be present with the people, to give myself over to the prayer, to allow God to minister to me in my sorrow. When it came time, I filed up to receive my ashes. I happened to end up on the Bishop’s side of the sanctuary. The Cathedral has a communion rail, so I silently took my place on my knees alongside the others. When the Bishop approached, I could tell he recognized me. I was wearing my clerics. His eyes crinkled from the smile beneath his mask. His expression put me at ease. I hadn’t fully realized until then that I was a bit nervous. In the days leading up to my ordination I received significant media attention to the chagrin of the institutional Roman Catholic Church. I was concerned that the pressure this created had permanently damaged my relationship with the Cathedral community. His smile said otherwise. Walking back to my pew I wondered if we would meet before the night was over. As the final hymn began, the choir—followed by the clergy—recessed prayerfully down the center aisle, only to travel back up the side aisles and ring the nave of the Church in song. Exquisite. Once the music concluded, a final prayer was offered and the choir, then the assembly, began to disperse. I stood at the outer edge of my pew for a few final moments of prayer. Then, at the very instant I turned to leave, the Bishop walked up. In one elegant move, he took off his mitre, fell to his knees, bowed his head, and said, “Bless me, Father.” My jaw fell open. I was stunned into a complete and total silence. I looked down at his head and saw his little red cap. Is this happening? After several moments, I somehow regained a bit of composure. I placed my hand gently on his head, I closed my eyes, and after a very long pause, I prayed a blessing over the Bishop. And God smiled. The intense reaction from many Roman Catholics to my ordination on October 16th was anything but Christian. I was verbally attacked, insulted, cyberbullied, harassed. “Demon.” “Clown.” “Deranged.” “The worst thing to ever happen was to give women rights.” “Snip off those sin buttons, and correction administered via open hand for the lot of you.” It was painfully obvious that I was not to be considered a human being worthy of basic respect. I sincerely ask all who participated in this behavior: Is this conduct becoming of a Christian? Is this what the Holy Spirit looks like? As far as I am concerned, these individuals might as well be gathered in a circle yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” I genuinely wonder if they were amassed in a crowd if they would stone me to death in the name of Christ.
The bottom line is that this reaction reveals the power that doctrine has to maim the Body of Christ and lead people away from God’s vision of justice. When a doctrine is anti-God it leads to oppression, derision, hatred. Whether the Church condones the vitriol is a red herring: it simply cannot be denied that the teaching of an all-male priesthood instills the idea that women are defective and deserve to be subjugated. This exclusion is a moral outrage that not only goes against everything Jesus taught, it also carries enormous costs both within and beyond the Church—costs that can no longer be ignored. I challenge every Bishop and the Pope himself to PRAY WITH the comments on Facebook and Twitter in response to my ordination and, in the light of the Holy Spirit, ask themselves: is this what God really desires? The more successful I am in my public work for Church justice, the more dangerous things will become. I will have to continually discern questions around my safety: whether to hire security for my Masses, whether to live alone, whether to screen my email and social media. This is the product of theologizing sexism in the name of God while practicing an arrogance that assumes the Church already has all the answers to what it means to be human. Regardless of this appalling response to my ordination, I will not allow anyone to dismiss my vocation. Roman Catholics can continue to flog me, crown me with thorns, and nail me to the cross, but it will not change my path. I am willing to be publicly humiliated and crucified for all the world to see if this helps God create the world that God desires. Our Creator has already shown us through Jesus that no matter how we resist, human beings ultimately cannot stop the power of the resurrection from flowing into the world. This is God’s initiative, not mine—I am simply being obedient. The historical, archeological and scriptural evidence demonstrates that God has been calling women to serve as equal partners in the Church since its inception. The time has come for the Roman Catholic Church to right this age-old wrong and bring its teachings into alignment with the gospel. The more the Church resists, the more damage it does to our credibility as an institution and to our ability to carry out the mission of loving the world. People not only leave the Roman Catholic Church because of this teaching, but they are often turned off of God. And THAT—not my ordination—is the true scandal. Father Anne This week I received my very first chasuble. If you are not familiar with the Roman Catholic ordination rite, right after I am ordained I am vested for the very first time as a priest. Two close friends in the Lord will lovingly dress me in my stole and chasuble, and then present me to the congregation. It is a most touching ritual, one I will experience only once and remember for the rest of my days.
When the package from the manufacturer arrived, I placed it on my bed and cautiously opened it. I have never owned something so beautiful. The royal fabric shimmered up at me. I removed the chasuble with care, shook it out, held it up, and stared at it. After a few moments, I gently pulled it over my head and turned to survey myself in the mirror. The woman staring back at me was a priest. I looked deep into her eyes....and smiled. How many of us have felt stopped from becoming who we truly are? Maybe we have internalized family expectations. Maybe we have accepted bogus cultural prescriptions. Maybe we have been crushed by institutional prejudice. Still, something very deep within us fights to express itself, to rise to the surface, to be seen and accepted and celebrated. I have waited so long for this moment and I feel alive. But, I also got a reality check. Not too long ago I bumped into a priest friend and, after some conversation about my ordination, he said with care, “I know you are excited, and you should be. It’s a joyous time. But, beware: you are painting a target on your head and, at some point, the weight of that stole around your neck will become very heavy.” I know that he was speaking from experience. I also know that what he was saying is true. Still, this doesn't stop me. After all, nowhere in scripture or tradition are we promised that the road to holy self-expression is easy. It isn't. It requires prayer and patience and fidelity and sacrifice and courage. But, if we want to become who we are, we must first give ourselves the permission to become. Once we do, God's Holy Spirit will rise up within us, take our soul by the hand, and guide us to that person we are meant to be. Dear Paul Baumann,
The article that you wrote for Commonweal in response to the New Yorker article on women called to the Roman Catholic priesthood was remarkably sloppy. Rather than waste my time with the exceedingly boring task of deconstructing an argument that simply boils down to good old-fashioned sexism, I want to address your lack of basic journalistic integrity. To start, you claim in regards to us women who are called that “there is something jarring about [our] conviction that the Church exists to ‘meet [our] needs’ and will ‘fall into irrelevance’ if it does not.” Here, you are attributing the words of a parishioner in a female priest’s community to the four of us. Yet, none of us offers any such sentiment about the Church existing to meet our needs. Rather--if you actually read our stories carefully—it is plainly obvious that each of us has been deeply shaped by the Church to serve the Church. So much for your claim that we have “little appreciation” for the Church’s role in forming us. You go on to characterize us as clamoring for “self-determination.” Once again, the four of us do not speak about our vocation to priesthood in this manner. Quite the opposite: our stories point clearly to the reality that it is God who is determining who we are—not us—and we are simply struggling the best we can to honor God’s desires. Nonetheless, you take Natalia Imperatori-Lee’s comment regarding women’s desire in general “to be seen as human beings with the capacity for self-determination” out of context and use it to reduce our vocations to mere “self-expression.” What you call “self-expression," we call honoring the Holy Spirit within us. Next, you say that we “repeatedly declare a love and attachment” to “Catholicism’s ‘rituals, its liturgy, and its tradition of service to the poor.’” Yet, again, you extract a phrase Talbot uses to describe the type of Catholics who are drawn to worship in one particular congregation, and weaponize it as a way to dismiss our vocations as some kind of “liberal Western sensibility.” And so what if we love ritual and Catholic Social Teaching? We are Roman Catholic, after all. And while you get to sit on your throne with every male privilege and judge us, we have to draw from the very bedrock of a faith that is nourished by liturgy and the social justice teachings in order to have the grit necessary to walk the excruciating path of a call to ordination. Finally, at the end of the article, you claim that “some of the women” in this article are “sadly” telling Roman Catholics to basically “forget their common past,” which amounts to telling them to “’get lost, die off, and disappear.” However, not one of us says anything remotely resembling this sentiment. In fact, many of us are educated ministers with seminary degrees from reputable institutions who practice a faith and leadership deeply rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition. Frankly, I am not sure how it is possible to read the article by Talbot with any care whatsoever and produce the article you did. If I made errors of this magnitude at my job, I would be fired. What I find most appalling about your piece is that it is plainly evident that you do not trust that we as women are mature, thinking, praying adults who are quite capable of discernment. Thank you for modeling so clearly the manner in which some men feel they are entitled to dismiss women as if we are children. This is precisely the problem, is it not? In closing, let me wrap it up for you: you messed up, dude, and big time. You owe us an apology. I expect to see it in the next issue of Commonweal. Father Anne Everyone has an opinion about what I am doing. They love it! They hate it! I should do “x!” I should NOT do “y!” People have thoughts on how I present myself, what I say, what I wear, who I am. I'm a heretic. I'm a hero. I'm sick. I'm strong. I'm being led astray (as if I don't have my own thinking mind and praying heart). I'm on the path of the Holy Spirit. Most recently, a friend and kindred spirit told me that a friend of his read the New Yorker article and in the most kind and sincere way said, “I respect what she is doing, but I cannot help but feel her efforts will be a waste.” Ouch.
In one way, all this energy is thrilling. The sheer fact that people respond so strongly in this or that way means that I am up to something very important. And, as excruciating as this path is, I feel alive. Not to mention, people often times share things that are extremely helpful, and I feel God’s touch through them. But, on the other hand, there is so, so much noise. It’s easy to feel hurt or confused or hesitant or dejected. After all, I am not even ordained yet: I am just a fledgling trying to find my way step by step—slowly discovering who I am as a priest. This formation is not something that can be rushed, but it can be delayed if I get knocked off course. When I catch myself marveling at all the commentary, I recall a conversation that I had some months ago with an Episcopal priest. She was about my age, give or take, and shared that she had been a priest for 23 years. Twenty-three years! I was taken aback, literally knocked backwards. I was amazed. Her gender was a non-issue: she was able to follow her vocation as a young woman, and she has had a long and fruitful career doing what she loves—what God has called her to do. She was able to say “yes” without one word about it. With all that swirls around me, I am keenly aware that more than ever I must stay rooted in the Spirit. Like the disciples in this Sunday's gospel, I return from my work of the day to eagerly share in my prayer all that has transpired with Jesus. He listens, sympathizes, teases. Then, he takes me by the hand and leads me to a deserted place. There, the quiet blankets all the noise within me and God’s voice swells up through the silence to teach me about the path, about who I am. It is my goal that someday, when I am old and gray, I will have the distinct pleasure of watching young women enter the Roman Catholic priesthood without one word about it. As long as that prayer glows in my heart, my efforts will never be wasted. My Facebook page transformed overnight from a place of support and encouragement to one of harassment and cruelty. It is clear that some people do not appreciate my challenge to long-held traditions—traditions they rely on to make sense of the world around them. My ministry threatens their worldview, and so they lash out in an effort to keep things stable and familiar.
I have been diligently praying through the comments and reactions, trying to discern whether and how to respond. I have to take the time to sort through the emotions that rush to the surface. I ask the Spirit to look with me, to teach me about myself, about the situation, about the path forward. Only when I reach a place of inner freedom do I respond with loving kindness to those who degrade me. I do this in a true effort to make a respectful connection across the great chasm of difference between us. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, perhaps it is a waste of time. Have I really changed anyone’s mind? Also, it is draining, and it is particularly demoralizing to see this behavior from women--especially young women--who have internalized the Church's sexism so completely that they actually believe women are deficient. On the other hand, it’s important to show what female priests experience. The anger. The derision. The hatred. The disrespect. There it is, in black and white: the tangible effects of a Church doctrine that teaches inequality. There is no denying the darkness. And practically? Well, its good practice: I need to sharpen my chops. I want to be like Rev. Shanon Sterringer, who swooped in on my page and blasted these folks with both barrels. She is so educated, so competent and so articulate, no one can touch her. My goal is to be like that. After all, the more support I gain, the more public condemnation I will receive. (I will really know I’ve made it when I start receiving death threats.) An interesting effect of this ongoing harassment is that I feel much closer to Jesus--and in a new way. For the first time, I have a *tiny* taste of his particular experience of rejection and humiliation. In my prayer we were sitting together on the trunk of a fallen tree at the edge of a meadow. He looked at me and with a wry smile said, “It’s not that fun, is it?” Shaking my head, I chuckled, “No, it isn’t.” He skooched closer, threw his arm over my shoulder, and we laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I got you.” What I realized this week on a visceral level is that I have to come to grips with the reality that an important part of my ministry is enduring this abuse. I cannot let it eat away my spirit and my stomach lining. Instead, I must welcome it, purify it, and offer love back as a response--and to do all this as prayer... for the Church, for God, and for justice. This is the way of Jesus, and it is the only way the cycle of darkness can be broken. It is perhaps true that most people would much rather have things remain the same--even if that means sacrificing the salvation God is so generously offering. But convincing people to change is not the point. As the reading this week from Ezekiel reminds us, God does not ask us to bring about results necessarily, but rather to be faithful to what God calls us to do--who God calls us to be. For the point is that, whether the people heed or resist, it is through us and our love that they shall know that God’s Spirit has been among them. Women are the backbone of the Catholic Church. We hold 80% of lay ecclesial ministry positions (including women religious) and I venture to say we do the lion’s share of the volunteering. Without women, parishes simply would not be able to operate. Period. Yet, we are excluded from Church governance and sacramental ministry. Why--why—do we accept this treatment?
Sociologists have studied ad nauseam the myriad ways cultural messaging tries to shape and control women. We are expected to sacrifice, to accommodate, to be silent. To be the caretakers, the harmonizers, the peacemakers. We are warned about being too loud, too ambitious, too demanding. And above all, we—unlike the boys—are expected to follow the rules, especially when those rules don’t serve us. What if we stopped behaving? Want to see the gears of the Catholic Church come to a grinding halt? Imagine all female staff going on strike. And all female volunteers following suit. And all the men who are down for the cause doing the same. Now imagine all the women parishioners who give to their local parish or school or Archbishop’s appeal diverting all of their families' donations into a fund to pay the wages of the workers who are on strike. And now imagine all those staff and volunteers using their newfound free time to pester the shit out of the bishops—the same bishops who would begin to feel the squeeze from stressed priests who can no longer keep their parishes running without the support of women. What would happen then? Would we be taken seriously? The truth is women already have the collective power to create change in the Church. It is up to us to stand together as one body in the Spirit and use it. I personally know many priests who privately believe the Church should ordain women to the priesthood. And though I don't rub elbows with Bishops, I imagine there are a fair number of them who think the same. So, the question is, why--for the most part (thank you, Germany and now Ireland)--aren't they speaking out? Practicing dissent in the Catholic Church is *tricky* business. It's easy enough to internally dissent on this or that issue in the quiet of our own hearts. We can also privately dissent with a friend or colleague--even with a priest or bishop--without much ado. But open and public disagreement with official Church teaching? This is much harder, especially if the end goal is to inspire movement on a teaching. This is because the magisterium generally relates to acts of dissent as threats to its teaching authority rather than as promptings to discernment. And though Pope Francis has a gentler touch on these kinds of things, obedience is deeply, deeply etched into the Catholic psyche. We all know what happened to theologian Charles Curran and Fr. Roy Bourgeois for challenging the magisterium on points of Catholic teaching. Public dissent means potentially attracting the Eye of Sauron, and with it grave punishment. In such a climate, priests and bishops who believe in ordination justice for the most part simply stay quiet, opting to minister as best they can under the circumstances. It's understandable. Still, we have to ask: what is the cost of this silence? Women suffer psychological injury, girls are taught they are less than human, boys learn they are inherently superior, and men never have to relate to women as true equals (and you better believe this also shows up at home and in the workplace). Further, the Church not only loses out on the gifts of female leaders, it increasingly forfeits its power to participate in the public square in meaningful ways. Understandable or not, the cost of this complicit silence is enormous, and as long as these priests and bishops stay quiet, a great moral maiming continues at the hands of the Catholic Church and, very sadly, in the name of Jesus. Yet, things could change--and change rapidly (at least in Church time). What if our brothers who have collars and wear mitres transitioned from private allies to public dissenters? What if they called for open dialogue on ordination? What if in one collective and prophetic voice they made a stand on behalf of women, on behalf of God? Imagine, just imagine, the difference they would make. So, gentlemen, how about it? We need you to use those balls God gave you and make a stand for justice. |