CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS’ MOVEMENT CELEBRATES SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF PITTSBURGH ORDINATIONS

Pittsburgh Friends of Women’s Ordination

Historic Ordination of twelve Catholic Women on July 21, 2006

Contact: Joan Clark Houk FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Cell Phone: 724-612-3842
Email: jhoukmdiv@mac.com
In July of 2006 twelve women were ordained in the Roman Catholic Church illegally, but validly, on the riverboat Majestic on Pittsburgh’s three rivers. This was the first such ordination in the USA for a movement that started in Europe four years earlier. The public is invited to celebrate the sixth anniversary with a showing of award winning documentary, Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, at Hollywood Theater, 1449 Potomac Avenue, Pittsburgh 15216, June 29th at 7:30 p.m. Producer Jules Hart and Bishop Joan Clark Houk look forward to a lively discussion following the film.
Joan Clark Houk, a Pittsburgh native, was ordained a priest in the 2006 Pittsburgh Ordination. Following election she was ordained Bishop for the Great Waters Region of Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP-USA) in April 2009. Bishop Houk recently stated, “Although I affirm dialogue and collaboration as a model for each of us in renewing the Roman Catholic Church, there is another time honored model, which RCWP USA is following. It comes into play when all other means have been exhausted. The unjust law excluding women from ordination must be broken in order to change it. This is an honorable and historic model for change.”
July is being called women’s ordination month in honor of the part Pittsburgh has played in bringing the Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement to the United States. Other activities are planned, and more are in the planning stage. (See www.joanclarkhouk.com)
More information about Roman Catholic Womenpriests can be found on their web site: www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org. “The rejection of women’s ordination by the Vatican is clearly based on antifeminist, theologically unfounded arguments. In answer to this we are seeing an increasing wave of resistance among Catholic women and within church reform movements, as they demand equal rights for women and justice within the Roman Catholic Church.” Rev. Dr. Ida Raming, ordained a priest in the first ordination of RCWP on June 29, 2002 on the Danube River; Representative of the German Section of the international RCWP Movement.