A Woman is Ordained to the Catholic Priesthood.
From Newsweek
By Karen Springen
Sept. 13, 2007 - Last week 25-year-old Jessica Rowley became one of about a dozen women nationwide to make a highly unusual career move: she was ordained a Catholic priest. Rowley’s ordination—which took place at Eden Theological Seminary, a progressive institution in Webster Groves, Mo.—is approved by the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, a group of churches that decline to recognize the authority of the pope but see themselves nevertheless as Roman Catholic. This week Rowley—who is also married—begins working full-time as an associate pastor at Saints Clare & Francis, a breakaway parish in Webster Groves.
The Roman Catholic Church, not surprisingly, does not recognize Rowley as a priest. “The Church does not see itself able to ordain women, following the long and constant teaching of the church,” says Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (It does, however, recognize the more than 100 already married men who became priests after a conversion to Roman Catholicism.)
Tango’s Take
It appears that the Ecumenical Catholic Communion have something in common with various Protestant sects (and it’s not that they think the Pope is just a guy in a funny hat). The ECC apparently just follow some of the other major tenets of Catholicism (i.e. transubstantiation et al). And the whole celibacy/ not getting married part of the priesthood was not introduced until the Middle Ages. The logic was that the church could only consolidate land holdings if they were not responsible for the offspring of the priesthood. And that sort of just held on. We wonder if certain rebel, non-papal Catholic groups are going to force change on the part of the church in Rome. This is a pretty good story if you have a minute to read.
Discussion
Question; what led Jessica Rowley to pursue the priesthood in the ECC?
Answer: While enrolled as a student at Jesuit-run Marquette University in Milwaukee, she conpleted the Manresa Project there, designed to help young folks discern their religious vocations. But her choice, the priesthood, was not an option.
One wonders, by limiting options, are we Catholics losing good people?
I have attended Mass several times at the nearby St. Louis parish where Jessica Rowley served as a deacon—Sts. Clare & Francis in suburban Webster Groves, MO—and would find it difficult to impugn her motives, or to disdain the parish’s efforts to preach what I would call the Gospel of Inclusivity.
It’s not what I grew up with, but I’m not sure that makes it wrong.
By the way, as a product of Jesuit education, both high school and college, I remember how we were taught to question the status quo, and to respect the process of inquiry—even when we disagreed with the results of that inquiry.
Some are rushing to condemn, but better, I think. is to use this ordination of Jessica Rowley as described by Newsweek to reflect on the way we Catholics are doing things.
We’re running out of priests. Maybe this ordination is the spiritual equivalent of the better mousetrap.
John Kerans
St. Louis, MO
