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Saturday, March 14, 2009

Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Mary, Mother of Jesus Catholic Community Moves to St. Andrew Church for Eucharistic Celebrations


Pastor Phil Garrison welcomed Mary,
Mother of Jesus Catholic Community

to St. Andrew United Church of Christ
in Sarasota, Florida. Married priest
Michael Rigdon and
Roman Catholic Womanpriest
Bridget Mary Meehan presided at this
historic liturgy.



Jack Meehan led the community songs of praise
on his saxophone and trumpet.

On March 14, 2009, Mary, Mother of Jesus Catholic Community celebrated our first liturgy at 6pm at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida. Pastor Phil Garrison warmly welcomed our community to this beautiful sanctuary. Forty-six people gathered for this historic first! Married Priest, Michael Rigdon and Roman Catholic Womanpriest, Bridget Mary Meehan presided. The community participated in a dialogue homily and recited the prayer of consecration during the Eucharistic Prayer. Jack Meehan, Bridget Mary's father, played the saxophone. We concluded our liturgy by praying for healing with two of our members who are ill.

MOVIES of Liturgy on YOUTUBE:
Links to youtube video clips of Mary, Mother of Jesus Catholic Community
historic, inclusive Catholic Mass at St. Andrew United Church of Christ.
In this clip, Pastor Phil Garrison welcomes our community to this beautiful sanctuary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFjIHI7ODKY

Preparation of the Gifts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBVqy37hc-s

Eucharistic Prayer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G00LMtBVlwU

Communion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKr5FCrg7oo

Recessional: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zzq8VCmomE

Prayer and Anointing of the Sick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OENGyGV7vcg


Roman Catholic Womenpriests: More links in major news papers on outrage over Vatican excommunication of Brazilian Mother and doctors

Excommunication of doctor and mother criticised
Irish Times - Dublin,Ireland
In a statement, the Roman Catholic Womenpriests group
called on the Vatican “to reflect the
compassion of Christ to this child, her mother and her doctors”. ...
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0316/1224242907606.html

Martha y Maria: Women's Lives, Women's Rights
Blog by Anne Eggebroten
http://marthaymaria.blogspot.com/

Whom Would Jesus Excommunicate?
Thank you to Bridget Mary Meehan for this letter and
statement from Roman Catholic Womenpriests
in regard to my commentary online today at
Women's eNews, http://www.womensenews.org/,

"Vatican Expulsion Should Start Outcast Honor Roll
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5375029/vatican-defends-brazil-excommunication/

Major News Outlet Links: Time, NY Times, Yahoo
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1883598,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/world/europe/08vatican.html?ref=world
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5375029/vatican-defends-brazil-excommunication/



Bridget Mary Meehan
RCWPMedia Contact
Press Release: March 12, 2009
Media Contact: Bridget Mary Meehan
sofiabmm@aol.com 703-505-0004
For Immediate Release

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Call the Vatican to Compassion
In response to the Vatican Excommunication of Brazilian Child’s Mother and Doctors

On March 7th, 2009, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho announced the excommunication of the mother and doctors who participated in an abortion that saved the life of a nine year old fourth grader.The 80 pound child was brutally and repeatedly raped and finally impregnated by her stepfather.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, affirmed the excommunications even though it was the doctor’s professional opinion that the pregnancy could kill the child.

Ironically, on the same day that Pope Benedict spoke about the dignity of women, these top church officials withdrew the sacraments from the child’s mother and doctors who, after all, were trying to save the child’s life while the man who violated the body and soul of a small child remains in good standing with the church.

The church had the opportunity to act in a pastoral compassionate manner. Instead, it perpetuated further violence in a family already torn apart by violence.One can only wonder how Jesus, who walked among us acquainted with grief and suffering would have acted.It was Jesus who told us to remove the beam from our eyes before we judge the actions of others. It was Jesus who directed us to forgive seventy times seven.

In the spirit of Luke 4:18 where Jesus announced his compassionate, justice-oriented ministry, Roman Catholic Womenpriests serve everyone including women and families traumatized by rape and sexual abuse with its life-long sentence of depression and anxiety.In inclusive grassroots communities we are breaking open the alabaster jars of sacramental grace united with those we serve.All are welcome always and no one is left out or sent away.There should be no such thing as excommunication in the house of God.

For many Catholics, the Eucharist is the heart of our faith.This decision made by the prelates contradicts the basic tenets of Catholic social justice teaching.This hypocrisy is the last straw. Roman Catholic Womenpriests call the Vatican to reflect the compassion of Christ to this child, her mother and her doctors.
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/

Friday, March 13, 2009

Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Cloud of Witnesses Retreat


Rose Mewhort

TO RCWP USA(March 13/09)

St. Katharine Drexel ( our meditation) Part 1:

Since March 3, we in Canada along with Judy Lee(USA) who first drew our attention to St Katharine Drexel , have had a few diverse conversations regarding this extraordinary American woman canonized Oct, 1, 2000 by John Paul 2.

Our 3 way conversation circled around Judy's own pastoral work and knowledge of Drexel but it was also energized by further considerations of Ruth Mewhort'sstained glasswork of the stand of trees she now calls (Paul's painting). I have kept coming back and back to it, and it has riveted me in ways I could not immeidately explain.

For me,(Michele), Ruth's stained glass artwork has strong aboriginal resonance and I feel a kinship between the omages and Katharine Drexel's pastoral work with Native American's and with the Black people. Perhaps, this resonance that has captivated me so is due to the fact that on our West Coast Islands, most of the land belongs to our first Nation's peoples and the spirits of their ancestors are everywhere in nature.

.As well, during the time of the underground railroad ,many black slaves escaped to these islands off the mainland of Canada. Indeed, I have an uncle on Saltspring Island whose ancestors were amongst these liberated people. I have 4 nieces who are black and my aunt, a Conery, who married Uncle Bob, did so when it was entirely unacceptable to marry interracially. I have another aunt who married a First Nation's man, both of them long since deceased. All of this took place out on these islands where Ruth now a painter on Galilano and a newcomer by the standards of the long living and deceased inhabitants, is picking up on what has long been here and lives in the waters, the rocks and the trees, the animal life; (nitice the whales in the stained glass working of the ocean).

So we will once again send this painting in recognition of the long journeys to freedom of our oppressed peoples Canadian and American, natives , blacks, hispanics and all those poor and dispossessed people of any race , ethnicity or gender--and worlwide, Let us remember Bishop Fresen and the justice understanding she has brought to us from Sout Afirica.

In her real life in the USA, and not imagined from Galiano Island, St. Katharine's young life prepared her for her later life's work. When I read that she was the second daughter of Francis Anthony DRexel and Hanna Langstroth, I find out only thatHannah died just over a month after Katharine's birth. This must have been signifigant in its impact on her father and the two girls who were then cared for by an aunt for 2 years.

Katharine's father re-married and so we now have the name of her step-mother Emma Bouvier Drexel who Katharine cared for in the last 3 years of mother's life until she died of cancer at the age of 21.

Katharine's father died in 1885 when Katharine was now herself 27 years old and a wealthy woman. It would seem that all family events had to transpire until she was free to follow her intensive and undeniable call to serve the aborignals she had already seen so destitute, and then later the blacks whose oppression she grieved and whose freedom she fought for.

She attended to needs , you could say, in Maslow's hierarchy. That is food and clothing came first, then schooling and all along she fought for human rights. She was a prophetic witness and justice worker well ahead of our times, and then dying herself, at the age of 97 but in retirement from her mid- 70;'s on due to debilitating heart illness.Imagine though, what she knew living from 1858 until 1955. Many of us were alive then and listening and dancing to The Platters who Rose says, also inspired her stained glass painting.

I liked the Platters version of "Trees"...
I changed the word "Poems" to paintings.

Paintings are maed by fools like me
But only god can make a tree.

Schmalze...but I like it.
(Rose)

Katharine was a benevolent woman who used her wealth to effect public change on a large scale. She started with the small country schools established on the reserves and pushed forward all the way to founding Xavier Collge, the first institute of highe learning for black people. She was a woman ahead of our later Civil Rights movement bought she fought against racial discrimation such that she could be held alongside the best(Matrin Luther King). Just a little ahead of her time we could say but such a life and what we have lived to see teaches us just who our people are in the Cloud of Witnesses. whether canonized or not
(and we question tne system of canonizastion justifiably)-. Neverhteless, they won by faith. By faith they went as far as they could go in their cirucmstances and time.

It will be the same for us in RCWP. and for other committed changemakers whatever their cause. We too take up a justice issue and stand against discrimination of all kinds but particularly for the ordination of women By this, I mean we stand for major discrimination and not just those little discriminations we feel in our personal rights when we are slighted unintentionally or forgotten by others sometimes.

We have something else in common with St. Katharine Drexel that we might recognize in RCWP .We are sometimes criticized as forgetting women of less privelege and are said to be women of privelege ourselves and here we go again, those uppity white upper class feminists now pushing for this particular change.

But what is benevolence? Few of us are wealthy women and probably none as wealthy as Katharine Drexel was in her time.But what we are doing in this foundational time is to give without holding back what we have of our money, our hospitality, our giftedness to bring forward this very difficult movement. This has no doubt led many of us to adopt a simpler lifestyle already. We are benevolent together in community and not as one alone.

We should resist being pressured to underestimate our empowerment from this nor led to overreach what can be done nor underestimate what we we may eventually accomplish.. We do this by the same faith liverd by St. Katharine Drexel and all in our Cloud of Witnesses and Communion of Saints. We do this..".Yes we can" as Obama would say.. And like him, we cannot do everything all at once. Nor can we address everyone's justice issue and solve their dilemna while at the same time remaining attentive to ours.

The prejudices we must yet come through ourselves will not disappear overnight but in living them through ,the mysteries of changing hearts will be revealed in the People of Godde's quality of faith life.So many of you are describing such experiences already in your communities

We have reason to celebrate and to be joyous and filled with hope and love for how far we have come and for where we are going, for what we can see and not see.

tbc in Part 2 which will include Judy Lee's personal story and knowledge of St.. Katharine Drexel..

Blessings on all,
RCWP/Canada and Europe West
rm

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Cloud of Witnesses Retreat


Image by Rose Mewhort

It is a glass work.I composed it at home on my return from the Mount. The glass pieceswere given to me by a stained glass artist who was a good friend. Hewas in a terrible head on collision and has since died. He lived on the edge all his life. He installed my floor, painted my living room,brought me firewood and helped me in many ways to set up my home on Galiano. I am always thankful for his generosity to me. So the spirit of gratefulness is in that work and gratefully I gave it away. If there is a title it would be "Tribute to Paul"


Rose

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Advise Vatican on Pastoral Approach to a Child's Abortion



Press Release
March 12, 2009
Media Contact: Bridget Mary Meehan
sofiabmm@aol.com 703-505-0004

For Immediate Release
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Call the Vatican to Compassion
In response to the Vatican Excommunication of Brazilian Child’s Mother and Doctor

On March 7th, 2009, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho announced the excommunication of the mother and doctors who participated in an abortion that saved the life of a nine year old fourth grader. The 80 pound child was brutally and repeatedly raped and finally impregnated by her stepfather. Cardinal Giovanni Battista, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, affirmed the excommunications even though it was the doctor’s professional opinion that the pregnancy could kill the child.

Ironically on the same day that Pope Benedict spoke about the dignity of women, these top church officials withdrew the sacraments from the child’s mother and doctors who, after all, were trying to save the child’s life while the man who violated the body and soul of a small child remains in good standing with the church.

The church had the opportunity to act in a pastoral compassionate manner. Instead, it perpetuated further violence in a family already torn apart by violence. One can only wonder how Jesus, who walked among us acquainted with grief and suffering would have acted. It was Jesus who told us to remove the beam from our eyes before we judge the actions of others. It was Jesus who directed us to forgive seventy times seven.

In the spirit of Luke 4:18 where Jesus announced his compassionate, justice-oriented ministry, Roman Catholic Womenpriests serve everyone including women and families traumatized by rape and sexual abuse with its life-long sentence of depression and anxiety. In inclusive grassroots communities we are breaking open the alabaster jars of sacramental grace united with those we serve. All are welcome always and no one is left out or sent away. There should be no such thing as excommunication in the house of God.

For many Catholics, this is the heart of our faith. This decision made by the prelates contradicts the basic tenets of Catholic social justice teaching. This hypocrisy is the last straw. Roman Catholic Womenpriests call the Vatican to reflect the compassion of Christ to this child, her mother and her doctors.

http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/

Vatican Lipservice to Women in Women's History Month

Women's Ordination Conference Leaders
Aisha Taylor and Erin Saiz Hanna

"This is a prime example of the devastating impact that the hierarchy’s cultural influence often has on women. When it comes to women’s issues, this type of hypocrisy – on a less horrific scale – is the norm in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. "



http://ncronline.org/news/women/vatican-lipservice-women-womens-history-month

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Roman Catholic Feminist Theologian Mary Hunt"s Article: "Excommunicating the Victims"

RDPulpit: Excommunicating the Victims

By Mary E. Hunt
Posted on March 10, 2009,
Printed on March 10, 2009

"The Roman Catholic Church stooped to a new low just in time for International Women’s Day. On Wednesday, March 4, 2009, at 10:00 a.m., a nine-year-old girl who was pregnant with twins had an abortion in Pernambuco, a state in the northeast of Brazil. The Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife was preparing to file a legal claim to stall or stop the abortion, but it was over before they were able to. The local arch bishop, Jose Carolos Sobrinho, told the media that God’s laws are superior to human laws in declaring that the girl’s mother, as well as the doctors involved in the abortion, were excommunicated"

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/humanrights/1206/

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Press Release: The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church says: Shame!

Press Release: Immediately
March 8, 2009
Professor Leonard Swidler, S.T.L. Ph.D. LL.D., President,
Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church
dialogue@temple.edu
The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church says: Shame!
When is the last time Cardinal Re of the Vatican, or any Vatican official, or indeed, any bishop, excommunicated a Mafioso responsible for deliberate murders?
But Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Brazil did excommunicate the mother who permitted an abortion to save the life of her nine-year old daughter who was rape-impregnated by her stepfather!
And this excommunication was defended by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops, as he told La Stampa, an Italian daily newspaper.
According to the report, the abortion was undertaken to save the life of the nine-year old mother. Why was Archbishop Sobrinho not at the side of the little raped child and her agonizing mother spiritually helping them - instead of publicly condemning them?
Perhaps the archbishop and the Vatican wonder why so many tens of millions of intelligent, sensitive Catholics are fleeing the Church? Here is another stunning reason!
Again, ARCC says to Archbishop Sobrinho and Cardinal Re: Shame!
Leonard Swidler, Ph.D., S.T.L., LL.D., LL.D.
Prof Catholic Thought & Interreligious Dialogue
215-204-7251 (Off.) 215-477-1080 (Home) 513-508-1935 (Mobile)
E-mail: http://www.blogger.com/ ; Web: http://www.blogger.com/
Editor, Journal Ecumenical Studies; Pres Dialogue Institute http://www.blogger.com/
Religion Dept Temple Univ Philadelphia, PA 19122 http://www.blogger.com/
Pres, Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church arcc-catholic-rights.net