A banner on one side of the makeshift sanctuary said: “Here we are!” On the other side, a matching banner: “We are ready!”And Winona resident Kathy Redig was ready Sunday afternoon for her ordination.
She’d been ready since Saturday night as she lay in bed thinking about the afternoon’s celebration.
And she had been ready since she felt the call to serve God as a teenager at Cotter High School in Winona.
On Sunday afternoon, in the east hall of Kryzsko Commons at Winona State University, Redig was ordained into the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization that seeks to ordain women in the Catholic Church and whose priests and bishops have often been excommunicated for doing so.
Redig was ordained a priest, while Barbara Vrabel Zeman and Mary Frances Smith were ordained deacons in the organization.
Around 250 people attended the service, including many area ministers from local churches. Redig, a chaplain at Winona Health, had previously been ordained a deacon for the Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
The two-hour service shared many similarities with a Roman Catholic ordination, but the other Womenpriests and Bishop Patricia Fresen emphasized parts that were intentionally changed.
“We are tired of talking, we are now doing something,” Fresen said. “The changes which we’ve made show a renewed priestly ministry in a new church.”
Some of those changes include ordaining priests and deacons together. In a Roman Catholic ordination, usually only the bishop and other ordained priests lay hands to ordain, but in Sunday’s ceremony others laid hands on those who were about to be ordained because of “the priesthood of the baptized.”
Fresen and the other priests welcomed anyone to partake in communion, with the celebrants receiving bread and wine last.
“There are no exclusions. All are welcome,” Fresen told the audience. “The celebrants will receive last. We will use a different model.”
Fresen said their basis for taking communion last was based on simple hospitality etiquette: Guests wouldn’t be served last, rather first.
Fresen also used her homily to encourage priests and explain the movement.
“We are not starting new, we are starting again,” Fresen said.
The Womenpriests argue women were ordained as priests and deacons until the 13th century, a statement which many Catholic theologians challenge.
“You are putting yourself on the line because that’s where God is calling you,” Fresen told Redig, Zeman and Smith. “And that’s where God’s people are.”
Fresen told listeners that she couldn’t be anything but Roman Catholic. She served as a Dominican nun for more than 40 years before being ordained a priest, which led to her immediate expulsion from the order — bereft of housing, transportation, money and health insurance.
“In my family of birth, there was a lot of dysfunction and so too now is there dysfunction in our church family,” Fresen said, referring to the Catholic Church. “But we have a right to priestly ministry. I am from South Africa. I know a lot about racial discrimination. But in Jesus, we do away with it. We do away with those differences, Jew or Greek, men or women… differences don’t make a group better or worse, superior or inferior.
“There should not be six sacraments for women and seven for men.”
When Redig stood for ordination, her children — Eryn and Isaac — stood to confirm her worthiness.
“In a society that talks a lot but doesn’t live up to its words, you are living up to those words,” Isaac said.
Redig was ordained by Fresen and line of people gathered to lay hands upon her, including many area ministers, some in vestments, some wearing stoles around dress clothes. The ordination was the second Womenpriests ordination in the Midwest.
Redig said the next step will be finding space for a small gathering — a congregation. And, of course, she’ll soon celebrate her first Mass.
She said her goal will be to continue the Womenpriests ethic of inclusiveness in her parish, which she has named All Are One.
“It will focus on the needs of the people and be inclusive,” Redig said. “It will be church in the very best sense.”
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