Roman Catholic Woman Priest Presides at Liturgy on Day Pope Francis Was Elected/Let Justice Rise Up: Mass for Gender Justice in the Catholic Church

       Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a Roman Catholic Woman Priest,

 presided at a liturgy in Rome on March 13th, just hours before

Pope Francis was elected.  Here is the liturgy that the community shared.    

Liturgy: Let Justice Rise Up: Mass for Gender Justice in the Catholic Church

First Reading: Isaiah 58:6-8

This is the sort of fast that pleases me:

Remove the chains of injustice!

Undo the ropes of the yoke.

Let those who are oppressed go free,

And break every yoke you encounter!

Share your bread with those who are hungry and shelter homeless poor people.   Clothe those who are naked…

Do this and your light will shine like the dawn and your healing will break forth like lightning!

Your integrity will go before and the glory of God will be your rearguard.

The Word of God. Thanks be to God.

Psalm Response: Let justice roll like a river

Psalm 57: 7-10

My heart is ready, O God, My heart is ready.

I will sing and play for you… I will awaken the dawn

Response: Let justice roll like a river

I will thank you among the peoples, God

And sing of you among the nations.

Response, Let justice roll like a river

I will thank you among the peoples, God

and sing of you among the nations

Response: Let justice roll like a river

Second Reading: Galations 3:28

All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ, in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. The Word of God. Thanks be to God.

Gospel verse: Praise to you, O Jesus Christ, Lover of all ages. Praise to you Jesus Christ, Lover of all ages. (chanted or said)

Gospel:  John 20: 16-18

Jesus said to her, “Mary’

She turned to him and said, “Rabboni” which means Teacher.

Jesus then said, “Don’t hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to Abba God. Rather, go to the sisters and brothers and tell them, “ I am ascending to my Abba and to your Abba, my God and your God. “

Mary of Magdala went to the disciples, “ I have seen the Teacher!” she announced. Then she reported what he had said to her.

HOMILY:

The Risen Christ appeared first to Mary of Magdala and commissioned her to be the apostle to the apostles. Now, what would she be doing and saying today?

 Like Jesus, her teacher, she would be challenging the religious and civil authorities for the empowerment of the marginalized, including women.  She would be calling out for Kindom justice and equality.  Kindom not Kingdom, not a hierarchy. K I N D O M means we’re related; in relationship; we’re all in this together, united in solidarity as the people of God.  

As the Conclave meets, where are the women ? Where are the married men? Where are the poor? Where are the children and the young people? Where are the many marginalized? 

 The Vatican gives flowers to women, but what women really want is full equality. Women priests are here!

Are the men at the Vatican so un-free --that they choose to ignore -- sinfully, THEY CHOOSE TO IGNORE the movement of the Spirit in the people of God? We pray for them. How can the Church speak about justice when the hierarchy does not practice what it preaches?

We say to our Brothers, OPEN not only the windows (Aggiornamento  Ah gee or na mento) as in Vatican II, OPEN THE DOORS OF THE CONCLAVE. LET THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN…

 

Let your sisters in…

 

The voice of God in our time IS the full equality of women AND men in church AND society, in our world that craves community, soulful connection to the Spirit found in one another!

 

Yes, it’s been 50 years, IT’S been HUNDREDS of years THE TIME for the leaders of our church, the Cardinals, to affirm women priests, married priests and ALL who are working to create a more inclusive church, a beloved community where Catholics are welcome to receive sacraments.

 

And the voice of the Spirit rising up from the grassroots people of God IS Being heard!

    Women priests are here!

 

Our first women bishops were ordained by a male bishop with apostolic succession. He told the women that he ordained them to promote justice in our church.

 

Those of us who have been working for years in the Women's Ordination movement, have said all along that once we women are ordained, AS WE ARE NOW, it was not just adding women and stirring. We have ALWAYS called for a renewed priesthood in a reformed Church. That means a community of equals where ALL share and express the gifts, the fruits of the Spirit, not just the priest. Our function as women priests is service NOT MORE POWER.

 

 It has been ten years since seven women were ordained on the Danube in 2002. In 2006, 12 women were ordained in Pittsburgh in the first U.S. Ordinations. Now there are approximately 150 Women Priests in Europe, U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

 

In our women priest model of faith communities, all are welcome in a circle of equals. We are NOT a hierarchy. We do not want to repeat clericalism or dualism. Yet, it is very important that we claim justice for women priests; for feminine images of God; for women imaging the sacred, the imago dei, for the Gospels to be interpreted from our women's living and dying. From married men's living and dying. From the poor and marginalized's living and dying.

 

The Spirit calls out for the needs of the people –everywhere-- to be heard, rendered and made whole, just and healthy.

 

Women priests are ordained as we are in a transitional time. We must As a matter of justice claim for women our equal rights to be ordained. We do this   by contra legem (against the law). We are breaking an unjust law yet we remain within the Roman Catholic Church. The sacrament of Orders comes from our baptism, not gender.

 

We are worker priests who see our role as one of service and leadership, not of power over or exclusion. In our women priest communities as well as our faith communities our practice is shared decision-making in a “discipleship of equals.”

 

Along with the grassroots people of God we celebrate inclusive liturgies where all are welcome, where everyone participates and can feel a sense of belonging. We want and need to belong in communion, in community, as that is where we express our deepest needs, yearnings and longings. Here, our new model of church is rising up in Spirit. Little by little, the VOICES AND NEEDS of the people are being heard…

 

As we are ALL the Body of Christ, at our Eucharist celebrations, EVERYONE consecrates the Eucharist. EVERYONE preaches. EVERYONE blesses each other. EVERYONE writes inclusive liturgies which means they include feminine as well as masculine images of God. 

 

Women priests are visible reminders that women are equal images of God, and therefore worthy to preside at the altar.  We are living prophetic obedience to the Spirit by disobeying an unjust, man-made, canon law that discriminates against women in our church. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. Like Rosa Parks, whose refusal to sit in the back of the bus helped to ignite the civil rights movement, Women Priests are not leaving the church, but leading the Catholic Church into a new era of justice and equality. No punishment, including excommunication, can stop this movement of the Spirit. In fact, one could argue that Pope Benedict, who has canonized two excommunicated nuns, has made excommunication the new fast track to canonization!

 

In Austria, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Australia, and the U.S. priests, bishops and theologians have expressed support of women priests, married priests and inclusive faith communities of equals. They are following in the footsteps of recently excommunicated and dismissed Maryknoll priest of 40 years, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who has prophetically called for a dialogue on women priests in our church.

 

Says Fr. Roy Bourgeois: 

 

“Silence is the voice of complicity. Therefore, I call upon all Catholics, fellow priests, bishops, Pope Benedict XVI, our next pope and all Church leaders at the Vatican, to speak out loudly on this grave injustice of excluding women from the priesthood.

 

“Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated because of his defense of the oppressed. He said, ‘Let those who have a voice, speak out for the voiceless.’

 

“Our loving God has given us a voice. Let us speak clearly and boldly and walk in solidarity, as Jesus would, with the women in our Church who are being called by God to the priesthood.”