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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Press Release+ Article + Poll + Bio. of Roman Catholic Womanpriest: Janice Sevre-Duszynska





Janice Sevre-Duszynska
On August 9, 2008, a Lexington woman who is a peace and justice activist will be ordained a Roman Catholic Womanpriest. Janice Sevre-Duszynska of Lexington, Kentucky will be ordained by Bishop Dana Reynolds of California in the first ordination in the South.

The ordination will be conducted by Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP), a movement which is building a renewed model of priesthood for a renewed Roman Catholic Church. Its goal is to achieve full equality of women and men, and to live with inclusiveness, respect and justice for all in a community of open and affirming equals.

Janice says she will be an itinerant priest, speaking out for the voiceless and challenging the powers that be to hear the call of nonviolence and cooperation in our world community. She says Jesus revealed a gracious, compassionate and justicemaking God of abundance. "He was a radical, nonviolent egalitarian who welcomed everyone to the table. He taught us to work for the 'kindom' on earth."

In 2008, Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) are celebrating ordinations in eight locations in the United States and Canada. Our most recent ordination in Boston received worldwide coverage including the following television stations: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Public TV as well as many radio stations. Presently in North America there are 30 priests, 12 deacons, 18 candidates, 1 bishop and many applicants. RCWP priests do not take a vow of obedience to bishops but rely instead on an informed conscience.

"We are reclaiming our ancient heritage," Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP spokesperson said. "Roman Catholic Womenpriests are following the example of Jesus who called Mary of Magdala, the first witness to encounter the Risen Christ, to be the apostle to the apostles, and the early Christian tradition of women leaders, like deacon Phoebe, priest Vitalia, and bishop Theodora, who served the church as deacons, priests and bishops. Scholars have documented that women served in ordained ministry for the first twelve hundred years of Christianity."

The ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington. Local and national peace-and-justice-makers will be there to support Janice and RCWP, and to remember those who died in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9,1945. Her ordination is close to the feast day of one of her patron saints, Clare of Assisi (August 11) who, along with Francis, worked for the people, the Earth and peace.

Media are invited to a pre-ordination press conference on Friday, August 8 at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, 3564 Clays Mill Road. (For questions regarding the press conference call Janice at 859-684-4247). Media are welcome to cover the ordination ceremony on Saturday, August 9, beginning at 3 p.m. Please be respectful; this is a sacred event. An opportunity for the media to ask questions will follow the ceremony. The press are also invited to the reception and dinner following the ordination.
Article and Poll:
Jessamine woman to be ordained a priest
By Jim Niemi
Herald-Leader Religion Writer
As a young girl growing up in Milwaukee, Janice Sevre-Duszynska often fantasized about becoming a priest while helping clean the sanctuary of the church her family attended.
“I’d sit in the priest’s chair, go to the pulpit, make believe I was preaching and giving communion,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why couldn’t I be up here?’”
Now, 50 years later, she will get her wish, but it could come with a price — excommunication from the Roman Catholic church. On Aug. 9, in defiance of the church’s 2,000-year ban on women in the priesthood, she will be ordained by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an activist group that has protested the ban since 2002..."
Link to article in Lexington, Kentrucky newspaper on July 30, 2008 and poll
Please vote in the poll Should the Roman Catholic Church ordain women?

BIO of Janice Sevre-Duszynska
Janice grew up in the 50s in an extended family in a Polish community on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her mother's parents had immigrated from Waclowek, Poland at the turn of the 20th century.
The oldest of four children, she lived with her parents, brothers and sister in the upstairs quarters of her Busia's (grandmother's) flat. An aunt, uncle, cousins and her Busia lived downstairs. Nearby were aunts, uncles, cousins, and her other grandparents. "I remember a deep sense of belonging, community and celebration," she said. "Our lives revolved around family celebrations, our neighborhood parish and our faith."

From kindergarten through the eighth grade she attended S.S. Cyril and Methodius school where she was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Every Saturday from the second through the seventh grade she cleaned the priest's sacristy and sanctuary with Sister de Paul. She knew from an early age that she wanted to be an altar girl and newspaper boy. " When I was alone in the church," she said, "I practiced the Mass on the altar as if I were the priest."

Her mother died suddenly when Janice was 16. Despite this devastating event, she graduated from Pulaski High School in January, 1968 and began college at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, the next month. In between work and college studies, she married and had two children. She graduated with a degree in English and Secondary Education in 1974, and in 1985 she and her family moved to Lexington, KY. In 1989 she completed an M.A. in Theatre. The following year her younger son died in an automobile accident when he was 18. A few years later she divorced.

For 15 years she taught English as a Second Language to teenagers from around the world, many of whom were refugees from violence. "I gave the love I had for my own children to them. In doing so, they saved me from the loss of my son."

She is the former chair of the Ministry of Irritation for Women's Ordination Conference (WOC), the national organization that has been working and praying for the ordination of Roman Catholic women priests since 1975. The ordinand has a long history of working for justice for women in the Roman Catholic Church. On January 17, 1998, her 48th birthday, she interrupted the ordination service at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Lexington and asked Bishop Kendrick Williams to ordain her. He did not. However, in her quest for justice for women in the Church she has witnessed to the U.S. bishops at their bi-annual meetings. Her actions included a sit-in at the Hyatt Regency in Washington, D.C. in which she took the mike and read her "Statement of Justice for Women in the Church". Before their mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception she publicly challenged the bishops to ordain women.

After witnessing for women's ordination in front of the cathedral in Atlanta, she was arrested for a sit-in inside the church when denied admittance for an ordination. For this action she spent six hours in the Fulton County (Atlanta) jail and was banned from the Catholic churches in the Atlanta archdiocese. She helped promote the Chicago billboard "You're waiting for a sign from God? This is it: Ordain women" to Milwaukee, WI (her hometown), Lexington, KY and elsewhere.

In 2001, with the help of the Women's Ordination Conference, she put up a banner on the edge of the Vatican as bishops from around the world met for a synod. It read: "Ordain Women" in seven languages and it was said it could be seen from the Pope's quarters.

As her unordained priesthood evolved, she "crossed the line" at Ft. Benning, GA in an effort to close the notorious School of the Americas (now WHINSEC), and to make a statement for nonviolence in the world. She consequently lost her teaching job when she was sentenced to three months in federal prison, but the community reinstated her upon her release.

In her priesthood "on the streets with the grassroots" she walked 75 miles in the Sonora Desert in Mexico in six days and five nights in solidarity with the migrant refugees as part of the Migrant Trail Walk. Janice participated with Pax Christi USA and the Nevada Desert Experience in a walk to the Shoshone land on Yucca Mountain to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Earlier this year she participated in an action with Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the Des Moines Catholic Worker Community in Des Moines, Iowa and spent the night in the Polk County Jail with 11 other activists, including Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly, when they demonstrated in presidential candidates' offices to end the war in Iraq.

Janice is a leader and activist in the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice and its Peace Action Task Group. She holds a B.S. in English and Secondary Education, an M.A. in Theatre and is working on a Doctor of Ministry degree. She writes music, poetry, essays and plays, rides horses and keeps a flower and vegetable garden. Janice shares her life with her husband, Dr. Robert A. Pohowsky, a retired geologist.
Janice was ordained a deacon at first U.S. ordinations of Roman Catholic Womenpriests on July 31, 2006.
Article in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Janice will be saying her first Mass on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, DC. Visit: http://DCcatholicworker.wordpress.com for more information.