Vatican: "Clueless or Complicit"/ Married Clergy and Women Priests Serve Church Now

Michael and Imogene Rigdon
bless assembly with water on
Easter Sunday at renewal
of baptismal promises

(left to right: Priest Partner Lee Breyer,
Patricia Fresen, visiting RCWP bishop
Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP, Katy Zatsick, RCWP
Priest Partner Michael Rigdon)


(left to right)

Priest Partner and wife
Carol Ann and Lee Breyer,
Bridget Mary Meehan , RCWP
http://www.ucanews.com/2011/05/03/clueless-or-complicit/

by William Grimm
May 3, 2011

"The archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has inadvertently presented another reason that the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church probably needs a married clergy.Responding to complaints that the beatification of Pope John Paul II was over-hasty and unseemly in light of the sex abuse scandal that will always be a blot on his papacy, the archbishop did not deny the problem. He simply said that beatification is not a “medal for good management service.No, Archbishop. Letting the chancery office run out of toilet paper is poor management service. Refusing to see or seeing, refusing to act against the rape of children is something else..."

Bridget Mary's Reflection:
The Roman Catholic Church already has a married clergy made up of male priests from other denominations who are opposed to women priests. I believe they number around 200 in the United States. Pope Benedict has set up an ordinariate for Anglicans who are opposed to women bishops and priests. So, as long as they are opposed to women clergy, the Roman Catholic Church has opened the door to married male priests. It makes no sense why the pope keeps the door closed on RC priests who left active ministry to marry.
Our RC married priests are priests forever by their ordination and their service to God's people. In our community, (Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community in Sarasota, Florida) we refer to our married priests as partner priests. Michael and Imogene Rigdon, Carol Ann and Lee Breyer, Katy Zatsick, RCWP and I work within a leadership circle and share presiding responsibilities with our MMOJ community each week.
A new paradigm of ministry is dawning with the Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement in grassroots communities. Women priests who are married and married male priests and their wives are serving together in inclusive Catholic communities that are organized in a circular model so that the community is empowered and their charisms called forth as we evolve and grow. It may be true that the Vatican is clueless, but married priests and Roman Catholic Women Priests are already living the change we want to see happen now!

Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/