"Barbie Becomes a Priest": Julie Blake Fisher designs priest outfits for doll/ may inspire girls/ future vocations

"Barbie gets ordained, and has the smells-and-bells wardrobe to match"
By Leanne Larmondin

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/barbie_gets_ordained_and_has_the_wardrobe_to_match

(RNS) "With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest..."

"The doll, her wardrobe and portable sacristy were a gift from Cleaver-Bartholomew’s friend, the Rev. Julie Blake Fisher, a priest in Kent, Ohio.

“I got a phone call from my husband who said a large package had arrived;Julie had told me that she was making something for me. She used to be a dressmaker and she makes gorgeous stoles, so I thought she was making me a stole,” said Cleaver-Bartholomew. “When I came home and there was this enormous box, I knew it wasn’t just a stole!”

Fisher had made Episcopal Priest Barbie and a few vestments two years ago for the children in her parish to dress.

“I thought the children would like to practice playing with the vestments and learning what they are,” said Fisher. The Rev. Barbie was a hit with both the children and a local group of women clergy, including Cleaver-Bartholomew.

When Cleaver-Bartholomew later got called to her parish in New York, Fisher knew the perfect gift for her friend.

“I thought, `I don’t have time to make her one of her own; I’ll just send her Episcopal Priest Barbie for her farewell gift,”’ said Fisher. “But then, when I sat down to start to package everything up, I thought `What if I added this? What if I added that? What if I made this? It would just take one more day.“‘

One more day turned into 100 hours of painstaking labor, and “before I knew it, it was Episcopal Church Barbie—High Church Edition,” Fisher said.

I am delighted to hear of Priest Barbie and grateful to Julia Fisher, who is the daughter of Dick Fisher, a member of our Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Community in Florida. Julia gifted me with a beautiful stole for my ordination as bishop last April. I think the "priest vestments and outfits" are great to promote the calling and will touch the imagination of girls everywhere. Maybe a vocation surge for women priests will be coming in the next decade or so!.
Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP