Association of Roman Catholic Women (ARCWP)Priests ordain 3 women, including Adele Jones, newly ordained, from Texas who isoldest woman priest in U.S. - holding book in photo.
The international Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement has grown from 7 courageous women who were ordained priests on the Danube River in 2002 to approximately 120 worldwide, now in 27 states in the U.S. in 9 countries, including Europe, North America and South American.
But, the real story is how could so few women cause the Vatican so much trouble, yet find so much support among ordinary Catholics who now "google" us to find where we are celebrating liturgies?
Talking about Shakeup!
First the Vatican ignored us, when that did not work, they excommunicated us, when that did not work, they put us in the same category of serious "crimes" as pedophiles.
Why? I think it is because we are reshaping and reforming our church in grassroots communities. We are not a protest movement, we are an action movement. We found a way forward. Our first bishops were ordained by a male bishop with apostolic succession. Now our bishops perform valid ordinations.
We believe that justice and equality for women in our church is the vision of Jesus in the Gospels. Women rights are human rights and the issue of human rights and democracy is now sweeping our world with major changes like the so-called "Arab Spring". While women priests are a "holy shakeup", a threat to the Vatican power structure, we are a welcome change toward inclusivity, partnership and equality for a growing number of Catholics including male priests and even bishops in Europe, U.S. Canada, South America.
Women priests are not leaving our church, we are leading our church into its future now!
Many people ask us how we deal with excommunication. Roman Catholic Women Priests reject Vatican excommunication. Like Mother Theodore Guerin and Mother Mary McKillop, both excommunicated nuns who were later canonized saints by the church, we love our Catholic tradition and one day, hope that our institutional church will view our work for justice and equality as a blessing. Since Pope Benedict canonized both excommunicated nuns as saints, one could say that our pope made excommunication a potential fast track to sainthood!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
http://www.associationoformancatholicwomenpriests.org/
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