AFTER serving as a Roman Catholic priest for 40 years, I was expelled
from the priesthood last November because of my public support for the
ordination of women.
Catholic priests say that the call to be a priest comes from God. As a
young priest, I began to ask myself and my fellow priests: “Who are we,
as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to
women is not?” Isn’t our all-powerful God, who created the cosmos,
capable of empowering a woman to be a priest?
Let’s face it. The problem is not with God, but with an all-male
clerical culture that views women as lesser than men. Though I am not
optimistic, I pray that the newly elected Pope Francis will rethink this
antiquated and unholy doctrine.
I am 74 years old. I first felt God calling me to be a priest when I was
serving in the Navy in Vietnam. I was accepted into the Maryknoll
Fathers and Brothers in New York and was ordained in 1972. After working
with the poor of Bolivia for five years, I returned to the United
States. In my years of ministry, I met many devout Catholic women who
told me about their calling to the priesthood.
Their eagerness to serve God began to keep me awake at night. As
Catholics, we are taught that men and women are created equal: “There is
neither male nor female. In Christ you are one” (Galatians 3:28).
While Christ did not ordain any priests himself, as the Catholic scholar
Garry Wills has pointed out in a controversial new book, the last two
popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, stressed that the all-male
priesthood is “our tradition” and that men and women are equal, but have
different roles.
Their reasons for barring women from ordination bring back memories of
my childhood in Louisiana. For 12 years I attended segregated schools
and worshiped in a Catholic church that reserved the last five pews for
blacks. We justified our prejudice by saying this was “our tradition”
and that we were “separate but equal.”
During all those years, I cannot
remember one white person — not a teacher, parent, priest or student
(myself included) — who dared to say, “There is a problem here, and it’s
called racism.”
Where there is injustice, silence is complicity. What I have witnessed
is a grave injustice against women, my church and our God, who called
both men and women to be priests. I could not be silent. Sexism, like
racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify
discrimination against others, in the end, it is not the way of a loving
God who created everyone of equal worth and dignity.
In sermons and talks, starting in the last decade, I called for the
ordination of women. I even participated in the ordination of one. This
poked the beehive of church patriarchy.
In the fall of 2008, I received a
letter from the Vatican stating that I was “causing grave scandal” in
the Church and that I had 30 days to recant my public support for the
ordination of women or I would be excommunicated.
Last month, in announcing his resignation, Pope Benedict said he made
his decision after examining his conscience before God. In a similar
fashion, in November 2008, I wrote the Vatican saying that human
conscience is sacred because it always urges us to do what is right and
what is just. And after examining my conscience before God, I could not
repudiate my beliefs.
Four years went by, and I did not get a response from the Vatican.
Though I had formally been excommunicated, I remained a priest with my
Maryknoll Order and went about my ministry calling for gender equality
in the Catholic Church.
But last November, I received a telephone call
from Maryknoll headquarters informing me that they had received an
official letter from the Vatican. The letter said that I had been expelled from the priesthood and the Maryknoll community.
This phone call was one of the most difficult and painful moments of my
life. But I have come to realize that what I have gone through is but a
glimpse of what women in the church and in society have experienced for
centuries.
A New York Times/CBS poll
this month reported that 70 percent of Catholics in the United States
believed that Pope Francis should allow women to be priests. In the
midst of my sorrow and sadness, I am filled with hope, because I know
that one day women in my church will be ordained — just as those
segregated schools and churches in Louisiana are now integrated.
I have but one simple request for our new pope. I respectfully ask that
he announce to the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world: “For many
years we have been praying for God to send us more vocations to the
priesthood. Our prayers have been answered. Our loving God, who created
us equal, is calling women to be priests in our Church. Let us welcome
them and give thanks to God.”