Adele Jones at 83 enjoys a carefree lifestyle at her
independent-living apartment, reading novels in a rocking chair,
catching Masses in a chapel down the hallway and scheduling shuttle
service for jaunts across San Antonio.
Soon, her life will get a bit hectic.
Today, she'll be ordained a deacon — and months later a priest — in
an unsanctioned ceremony that she claims will usher her into the
all-male priesthood of the Catholic Church.
Jones is believed to be the first woman in Texas to take this step
and is part of a growing movement by reform-minded Catholics seeking to
spark the hierarchy into reconsidering its ban on female ordination.
The tipping point for Jones came last July when the Vatican suggested
female ordination was an offense comparable to pedophilia and
punishable by excommunication.
“I am not angry. I'm saddened,” said Jones, once a fundraiser for
Catholic Television of San Antonio.
“I love my church. I have loved it
since I was born. But it's sad to see it self-destruct by what it's
doing to women.”
This debate intensified in 2002 when seven women claimed to have been
validly ordained aboard a boat on the Danube River as Catholic priests
and later were excommunicated.
Today, leaders in this movement report an estimated 120 women worldwide are candidates or already ordained.
The Catholic Church sees the all-male priesthood as an unchangeable,
time-honored custom central to preserving its sacraments and reflecting
Jesus' selection of male apostles to head the early expansion of the
Christian faith.
It also argues that nuns have been leaders with sizable ministries,
and notes women may fill certain posts at parishes and
other institutions.
But Jones and like-minded advocates contend rank-and-file Catholics are on their side. In a poll last year by the New York Times and CBS, 59 percent of U.S. Catholics favored letting women become priests, with 33 percent opposed.
Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop in the Fort Myers, Fla.-based
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, will ordain Jones and three
other women as deacons at 3 p.m. today at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Sarasota.
The ceremony will mirror the official Catholic liturgy, with a couple
of exceptions: gender-sensitive names for God and no promises to obey
Catholic bishops.
“We know we are disobeying an unjust law that discriminates against
women,” Meehan said.
“Just like the prophets of old and the leaders of
the civil rights movement, we are not going to allow the Vatican and the
institutional church to continue to discriminate.”
Citing a lack of information on Jones' case, the San Antonio archdiocese declined comment.
Church was her rock
Born and raised in New Orleans, Jones was the only child of a devoutly Catholic mother and Lutheran father.
The Catholic Church was her rock, she said. She said the traditional
Latin prayers, elaborate processions and incense-infused ritual in the
church before Vatican II enhanced her spiritual experience.
A graduate of Catholic schools, she became a psychiatric nurse at age
20 and married a physician from Texas. She helped him start a practice
in Victoria.
Jones raised their two sons and was active in nonprofits and the
community. She once was the Victoria school district's only female
board member.
Divorcing after 29 years upset her once-stable lifestyle.
In 1979, she relocated to San Antonio as a single, empty nester in search of new direction. She lived in a condo across from Oblate School of Theology, where she took a summer course. It opened up a latent passion.
Eleven years later, she earned a master's in divinity and another in
theology from Oblate and a doctorate in ministry at age 70 from a United
Methodist seminary in Chicago.
She became a psychotherapist and occasional professor at Oblate known
for her Franciscan spirituality and a counseling model based on the
expressive movement.
Postgraduate study caused
her periodic bouts of anger about gender inequities in the Catholic
Church, she said.
But she figured her lot in life was to live it in
reverse: marry young, raise children, then find her true calling.
“I think when I was born, it was there,” she said. “But I didn't see
anything after (marriage and children). It didn't develop because it
wasn't available.”
‘The moment'
Jones always has been a voracious reader.
She turned a room in her apartment into an office with dozens of
books.
Framed photos of graduation ceremonies and academic certificates
line the walls above a desktop computer whose screensaver is a classic
portrait of Jesus.
On bookshelves rest the “Wizard of Oz” collection, Bibles, a
concordance, commentaries and church histories, including one she pulled
out on a recent afternoon about the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther, the father of this historic split from the Catholic Church, was pictured on its cover.
Jones spoke of Luther's place in history: a Catholic priest who
confronted the hierarchy over corrupt practices and posted his
complaints — the 95 Theses — on the door of his German parish in 1517.
He was excommunicated.
Jones said she expects the same outcome.
Once a priest, she envisions a ministry for Catholics in alternative lifestyles and from other marginalized communities.
She will present herself as a Catholic priest, performing funerals
and weddings. She'll baptize converts.
And she'll consecrate hosts into
the actual presence of God — the core Catholic belief she said really is
at stake in this battle.
“The consecration of the host — the moment — is at the heart of the church,” she said. “That's a lot of power.”
Jones, who occasionally uses a walker, said she has been exercising
on a mat for weeks to prepare for her ordination.
The focal point of
today's ceremony will require her to lie face-down on the floor.
The bishop will pray.
A choir will sing the Litany of the Saints, one
of the oldest, most-cherished Catholic prayers that calls to mind the
historic giants of the faith.
Her ministry will keep her busy, she said, but she's ready.
“At 83, I'd much rather sleep in late in the morning, read, write and
play,” she said.
“But when I was baptized, I entered the fullness of
the Catholic Church.”