They risk being excommunicated by the Catholic Church but vow they won't be stopped.
Bernadyne "Bernie" Sykora of St. Cloud, Minn., and two other women will be ordained priests at a Mass by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests of the Midwest Region on June 23 in St. Cloud.
"Bernie
has been a main force behind the formation of the Mary Magdalene parish
in St. Cloud," said Mary Frances Smith, who was ordained a Roman
Catholic Womanpriest in 2009.
"Bernie really believes in the cause of equality for women; she's very strong in that way."
Bishop
Regina Nicolosi will preside at the event at Mary Magdalene, First
Apostle, which is a parish that holds its services at St. John's
Episcopal Church.
"The women in the RCWP have decided that it's
time to roll up our sleeves and simply move forward," Smith said of
Sykora, an 80-year-old ordained deacon in the RCWP movement.
Women priests
Roman Catholic Womenpriests maintains womens' ordinations are "valid" but "illicit" (or against canon law), said Nicolosi.
"Our
first bishops were ordained by a male bishop in apostolic succession,"
according to the website of the international movement within the Roman
Catholic Church.
"It's my hope that one day women will be given
rights in the Catholic Church equal to those of the male population,"
said Sykora.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis' stance is
"women who claim to have been ordained Catholic priests in fact have no
relationship to the Catholic Church because their ordination is not
valid."
Bishop John F. Kinney of the St. Cloud diocese recently
re-iterated that even though Corene Besetzny of Red Wing, Minn., and
Martha Sherman of Salem, S.D., also will be ordained priests along with
Sykora.
"I don't think we necessarily can do anything the male
priests can't, but another way to say that would be we are capable of
doing everything that male priests can do," Smith said.
"The Roman
Catholic Womenpriests movement is necessary because if we wait, nothing
is going to happen for a very, very, very long time — if ever," Smith
said.
Gender equality
Sykora does Gospel
readings and homilies at Mary Magdalene, First Apostle, and assists at
Liturgies as a deacon at the parish, which attracts more than 40 people
to its monthly Mass.
"For a womanpriest to be standing
vested at the altar, presiding, is super important for Roman Catholics
to see," Smith said. "For others, it brings them to tears because this
is something they desire to see, especially women."
The self-described "cradle Catholic" earned a master's degree in theology from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul in 2008.
"We
are married, single. Many of us work in other professions, and we bring
those life skills to our role as priests. And some would say we bring
some of those feminine qualities to the priesthood, perhaps some more
nurturing qualities," Smith said of womenpriests.
According to the
website of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, "We, women, are no longer
asking for permission to be priests." The website also states ordained
women are ministering in more than 29 states.
Lifelong Catholic
Sykora
was married for almost half of a century and raised four children; the
lifelong Catholic has seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren,
according to her Roman Catholic Womenpriests biography.
"My
parents were very devout people, who lived on a farm in southwestern
Minnesota, about 4 miles from the nearest church, but we didn't miss a
Mass, and we went to a neighboring church if there was no Mass at our
church, so it was quite an effort at times," she said.
Sykora
attended a Catholic boarding school and the College of St. Benedict in
St. Joseph, and spent five years in the Maryknoll community before
teaching in the St. Cloud school district.
"When I do go back to
the greater Catholic Church, I'm offended by a lot of the language that
excludes women," Sykora said. "In fact, I have a hard time ignoring it."
Sykora
became involved with the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement when
Smith was ordained because, Sykora said, "I would not feel fulfilled
without my faith."
Roman Catholic Womenpriests would alleviate a
shortage of male priests, which has led parishes in the St. Cloud
diocese to cluster and share pastors.
"Hopefully after I'm ordained to the priesthood, we can have more services in the area," Sykora said.
'Unjust laws'
"Our
Liturgy is quiet similar to the regular Roman Catholic ordination
Liturgy," Nicolosi said. "The differences is we use inclusive language,
which means we do not address God as 'male' and also addressing people
in the pews, we do not address them as 'brothers' but as 'brothers and
sisters,' " she said.
"And the part where men promise
obedience to the bishop, we do not do that. We believe that the
obedience is to the person of Christ, then our almighty God and to the
community, not specifically to the bishop because we do not believe in
the hierarchy as male priests do."
Kelly Doss belongs to the
Cathedral of St. Mary in downtown St. Cloud. The 34-year-old disagrees
with the Catholic Church's position regarding women as priests.
"So
many women have been called — I've talked to many of them — and they
just feel like there's something missing from them because they've been
denied the call because of their gender," said Doss, who plans to attend
the ordination.
Nicolosi said, "We believe there are laws that
are unjust and they need to be broken because they are not in accordance
to the teaching of equality and love that Jesus preached and died for."