On the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and said no.
Pope
John Paul II, in a definitive formulation, said that door is closed.
Boom.
Growing up in a
small town in Louisiana, I went to segregated public schools for twelve
years. Even our little Catholic church was segregated, with the last
five pews reserved for the black members.
I graduated from high
school in 1956. Looking back, I cannot remember one white person in our
town who had the courage to say: “We have a problem here, and it is
called racism.”
What I do remember are the mantras: “Segregation is our
tradition” and “Blacks are separate but equal.”
I studied geology
in college with the hope of getting rich in the oil fields of Texas, but
as a patriotic graduate I joined the military, my ticket out of
Louisiana and an opportunity to explore the world. In my fourth year,
having become a naval officer, I volunteered for shore duty in Vietnam
which would become a turning point in my life.
Never had I
experienced such violence, suffering, and fear. In the madness of war,
my faith became more important and I felt God was calling me to be a
priest. I talked to a Catholic Army chaplain about my calling, and he
recommended that I join the Maryknoll Missionary Order who worked with
the poor around the world.
I was ordained a Catholic priest in
1972 and assigned to Maryknoll’s mission work in Bolivia.
A slum on the
outskirts of La Paz became my home for the next five years; the poor
taught me about their “theology of liberation” and a God who empowers
and gives hope to the poor.
This theology teaches about a loving God who
does not want anyone to suffer from poverty, oppression, violence, or
discrimination.
They also introduced me to the importance and
meaning of the word “solidarity” in the faith community. In Bolivia, it
meant “to accompany” and “to walk with.” To be in solidarity means to
make another’s struggle for justice, peace, and equality your struggle.
People
who are exploited, who see their children go to bed hungry and die
before their time, cry out for justice and organize in solidarity with
each other. As a result, many were killed and imprisoned. During my
fifth year I was among the many arrested by the military and I was
forced to leave the country.
I then turned my attention to El
Salvador where, on March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was
assassinated because of his defense of the poor. Months later, four U.S.
churchwomen working with the poor were raped and killed by the
Salvadoran military. Two of the women, Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke
and Ita Ford, were friends of mine. The other two women were Ursuline
Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan.
On November
16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her 15-year-old
daughter were massacred by the Salvadoran military. When U.S.
congressional leaders announced that those responsible for the slayings
had been trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort
Benning, Georgia, I and a small group of friends returned to Georgia to
investigate the SOA. In 1990, the SOA Watch was born.
When the
United Nations reported that those who had killed Bishop Romero and the
four U.S. churchwomen, in addition to the six Jesuits and countless
others, had been trained at the SOA, and when major newspapers in the
United States reported on the torture manuals they used, thousands
joined our movement to close the School.
It was in giving hundreds
of talks about the SOA at churches and colleges that I met many devout
women in the Catholic Church who told me about their call by God to the
priesthood.
These women had been rejected because the Catholic Church
teaches that only baptized men can be ordained. This brought back
memories of the segregated school I attended and our little Catholic
church. I was silent about this sin of racism though I have since
learned that when there is an injustice, silence is the voice of
complicity.
In 2000, I was invited to speak at a large religious
conference in Rome about the SOA and U.S. foreign policy in Latin
America. Hundreds of priests and nuns attended and were supportive of
our efforts to close the SOA. The day before returning to the United
States, I was invited by Vatican Radio to do a 15-minute live interview
about the SOA and U.S. foreign policy.
With two minutes left and
moved by the spirit, I recognized an opportunity to express my
solidarity with women in the Church, so I said, “We have been discussing
the injustice of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. As a Catholic
priest, I want to say that there will never be justice in our Church
until women can be ordained.”
I had about another minute remaining
and wanted to say a little more about women priests, but the manager of
Vatican Radio angrily came in, cut me off the air, and started playing
church music. The interview was over - but I slept very well that night
knowing I hadn’t let a sacred moment pass by in silence.
As a
Catholic priest, I saw a grave injustice being done to women in my
Church, and I could not remain silent. Excluding women from the
priesthood is a grave injustice against women, against our Church, and
against our God who calls both men and women to be priests.
From
that point on in my talks about the injustice of the School of the
Americas toward Latin America, I also addressed this injustice closer to
home. I began to ask publicly the following questions: Why wouldn’t
women, like men, be called to be priests? Don’t Catholics profess that
men and women are created of equal worth and dignity? Don’t the Holy
Scriptures state clearly that “There is neither male nor female. In
Christ you are one” (Galatians 3:28)? Don’t priests profess that the
call to be a priest is a gift and comes from God? And the all-important
question I asked myself and fellow priests was this: Who are we, as men,
to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to women is
not?
In asking these questions I saw clearly that our Church’s
teaching that excludes women from ordination is rooted in sexism.
Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to
justify discrimination against others, in the end, it is never the way
of our all-loving God who created us all equal.
It was after
participating in the ordination of a woman in 2008 that I received a
letter from the Vatican stating that I must recant my support for the
ordination of women or I would be excommunicated, and that the
ordination of women was a “grave scandal” in the Catholic Church. When
most Catholics hear the word “scandal,” they think about the thousands
of priests who sexually abused children and the many bishops who covered
up their horrific crimes—not the ordination of women.
I wrote the
Vatican saying that my conscience would not allow me to recant. I
stated that our conscience is sacred because it always urges us to do
what is right, what is just. In essence, I said, you are telling me to
lie and tell you that I do not believe that God created men and women of
equal worth and dignity and calls both to be priests. This I cannot do;
therefore I will not recant.
I continued to follow my conscience
and went about my ministry calling for the closing of the SOA and for
the ordination of women. In October of 2011, I joined an international
delegation of women’s ordination leaders going to the Vatican.
We met
with Church leaders, delivering a petition signed by 15,000 supporters
of women’s ordination.
We showed the documentary film Pink Smoke Over
the Vatican at a nearby theater, and we maintained a vigil in St.
Peter’s Square, holding banners that said: “ORDAIN CATHOLIC WOMEN” and
“GOD IS CALLING WOMEN TO BE PRIESTS.”
Three from our delegation were
removed from St. Peter’s Square by Rome police; we were detained for
three hours and our banners were confiscated. Once again, it was all
about solidarity.
It was only when I began expressing my
solidarity with women in the Church, that I recognized how deeply sexism
and power permeate the priesthood.
Somehow we have lost our way,
forgotten the teachings of Jesus, and evolved into a very powerful and
privileged clerical culture. It saddens me that so many of my fellow
priests see women as a threat to their power.
As men, we claim that we,
and we alone, can interpret the Holy Scriptures and know the will of
God. We profess that men and women are created in the image and likeness
of God, but as men we have created God in our own image. And this God
is very small, very male, and sees women as the lesser of men.
On
November 19, 2012, I was notified by Maryknoll that the Vatican had
expelled me from my Maryknoll community of 46 years and the priesthood.
This is very difficult and painful.
I’m aware, however, that the
rejection I feel is but a glimpse and a fraction of the rejection women
have experienced in the Catholic Church for centuries.
I notified
the Vatican and the leaders of Maryknoll that they can dismiss me, but
they cannot dismiss the issue of gender equality in the Catholic Church.
The demand for gender equality is rooted in God, justice, and dignity,
and it will not go away.
As a Catholic priest for 40 years, my
only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male
power and domination in our Church.
On the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and said no.