Support Nun Justice and the LCWR!

You can find these activities and other information at the Nun Justice Project website: http://nunjustice.org/

Two upcoming Nun Justice events:

1. The campaign to "direct or redirect" funds to religious orders is focused on Pentecost Sunday. Give to your favorite women’s religious community and/or to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious instead of or in addition to giving at your local parish. Be sure to record your redirected gift on nunjustice.org so we can see how much of an impact we are having together for change.

2. Prayer services and vigils will be held on May 29th - the first day of the LCWR leadership meeting. There is a special suggested prayer service for this day on the website, along with the "regular" prayer service. Both can be downloaded. Please urge your members to pray, in groups or on their own, on this day!

Bishops Sue to Stop HHS Contraception Mandate/Election Year Ploy? Whose Freedom of Religion and Whose Conscience is at Risk? Rise Up for Gender Justice

http://ncronline.org/news/43-catholic-dioceses-groups-sue-stop-hhs-contraception-mandate
The United States Catholic Bishops involved in this election year ploy do not represent Catholic women or the majority of their own church, let alone the rest of the country. They claim this is about freedom of religion, but whose freedom of religion? whose freedom of conscience? Do other religious leaders get to impose their beliefs on the people of our country who do not share their faith? If this were so, the Seventh Day Adventist would have every right to impose their opposition to blood transfusions on us. It looks like the bishops and the Republican party have joined forces in their war on women's reproductive health. Let's rise up in opposition to the U.S. Catholic bishops' anti-women agenda that violates the majority of Americans' freedom of religion. Let's unite for  gender justice now. No one should fall prey to this election year ploy by the U.S. Catholic bishops!
Sr. Bridget Mary Meehan, sfcc, arcwp
sofiabmm@aol.com
www.arcwp.org

"Bishops Search for Condoms in Cookie Boxes" by Mary Hunt/ Religion Dispatches.Org

• http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6002/bishops_search_for_condoms_in_cookie_boxes/
  "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is having a Saturday Night Live moment. Emboldened by the Vatican’s hostile takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the gentlemen have shown their prowess by choosing to investigate the Girl Scouts of the USA. Which would be comical—first the nuns, now the Girl Scouts—if the goal were not so pernicious and the outcome so damaging, especially to the bishops.
  The tactics against the girls and the women are taken from one playbook, the goal of intimidation is the same, and the pushback in both cases is distracting from more pressing problems at hand. Still, you wonder who does their public relations, as the bishops are now about as popular as a recession.The apparent goal of this exercise of “investigating” gender female persons is to set up and enforce a male-defined model of girlhood/womanhood. A Vatican-, or in this case, USCCB-launched investigation is what Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, calls the equivalent of a grand jury investigation. There is the presumption that something is wrong, not something right, that there is guilt to be uncovered, not virtue to be unleashed. What is wrong seems to be women and girls thinking for themselves and acting for the common good.
  What boggles the mind is why the Roman Catholic Church would be so presumptuous as to investigate what does not belong to it. Granted, some Scout troops meet at Catholic churches, but that does not make them Catholic entities any more than the Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets in the same basement. In the case of the Scouts, the supposed connections with groups that support reproductive justice are, for the most part, links to websites where girls can find further information on issues, hardly a ringing endorsement of the groups’ missions. Sex education is not an integral part of scouting; that is something left to families. What is really at issue here is that women and girls involved in the Girl Scouts do not ask permission of ecclesial men to live as responsible citizens of a global world..."
• Bridget Mary's Reflection: Right on, Mary Hunt! The "bishops search for condoms in cookie boxes" is another sign of the last gasp patriarchy.  I believe the bishops are tone deaf and do not understand how alienating their behaviour is toward women and girls. Their investigation of the nuns and Girl Scouts have made the bishops a laughing stock, as Robert Kaiser points out. They have become fodder for late night comics! 
• Gender justice, equality, and primacy of conscience are major issues at the heart of our faith. It is time for Catholics in the pews to redirect their giving to challenge the bishops. On the other hands, the Vatican and the bishops are the gift that keeps on giving. This could become a fundraising bonanza for LCWR, the Girl Scouts, and  maybe even groups like women priests and WATER. As the old saying goes money talks!
• Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, sofiabmm@aol.com www.arcwp.org

"American Nuns: Guilty as Charged?" by Angela Bonavioglio in The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/article/167986/american-nuns-guilty-charged
"On April 18, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the modern-day vestige of the Holy Office of the Inquisition—released the conclusions of an investigation begun in 2008 into the sins of our sisters. The congregation issued what amounted to a takeover decree to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a move that “stunned” the organization. With over 1,500 members, all heads of religious congregations, LCWR leans liberal and represents 80 percent of America’s 57,000 nuns. After giving an obligatory nod to the sisters’ good works in schools, hospitals and social service agencies, the CDF devoted the remainder of its Doctrinal Assessment to attacking the sisters for failing to provide “allegiance of mind and heart to the Magisterium of the Bishops”; focusing on the “exercise of charity” instead of lambasting lesbians, gays, and women who use birth control or have an abortion; refusing to accept the ban on women’s ordination; allowing “dialogue” on contentious subjects; and tampering with the notion of God the “Father” while promulgating other “radical feminist” theological interpretations. The CDF’s solution: send in three men, an archbishop and two other bishops, to take control of LCWR for five years. Much work by Catholic feminist theologians has undermined the hierarchy’s claim to absolute authority in matters of faith and morals...They claim women’s moral authority, clinging to the fundamental belief in the primacy of conscience. “God gave us free will,” explained the late Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler, a signer of Catholics for a Free Choice's 1984 petition, published in the New York Times, calling for dialogue in the church on abortion. “Free will is guided by conscience…. A woman will answer to God for one thing: Has she followed her conscience?… It’s nobody’s right to tell her what her conscience said to her.”The church fathers are so desperate that they have ordered the archbishop and his two assistant bishops to take over everything from LCWR—revising the community’s rules, planning events, approving speakers, withdrawing unsuitable materials. Chittister minced no words in assessing the Assessment. She told the National Catholic Reporter that it was “immoral,” “demeaning,” and nothing more than an attempt “to control people for one thing and one thing only…for thinking.” She sees rejecting Vatican control and forming an independent organization as the only real option for LCWR..."

"Catholic Bishops Threaten to Sue for Their Right to Hate Lady Parts" by Kaili Joy Gray

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/16/1092167/-Catholic-bishops-threaten-to-sue-for-their-right-to-hate-lady-parts

"The Catholic Church's U.S. hierarchy warned Tuesday that without quick action by Congress, it will sue the Obama administration for mandating that insurance plans provide birth control to women without a co-pay.

"[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest," lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to federal regulators.

Talk about sore losers. The bishops had their chance to weigh in on the Obama administration's new policy to require health insurers to cover birth control without co-pays. The Obama administration generously carved out a boatload of exemptions for them to address their "concerns." The bishops even got their puppets in Congress to introduce bills on their behalf -- which the American people overwhelmingly opposed. They even got themselves invited to the boys-only congressional hearing on birth control -- because who understands birth control better than a bunch of supposedly celibate men?..."

..."At the end of the day, though, they lost. They made their case that basic health care for women violates their "religious liberty" and makes Jesus sad -- and they lost. They launched a charm offensive to "set the record straight," arguing that the Catholic Church totally loves women's health care and has been "the most effective private provider of such care anywhere around," and people better stop saying mean stuff about them or they won't be able "to live out the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for others." And no one bought it..."

not cover someone who opens a Taco Bell and thinks his employees should not be allowed to use birth control because of Jesus 'n stuff. Yeah, he's a real legal eagle, that one.

Given that one federal court has already ruled against the bishops' absurd argument that their definition of religious liberty trumps all else, any future lawsuits are most likely destined for the same fate. But since stopping women from having access to affordable health care has now become the Most Importantest Issue Evah!, little things -- like being completely wrong -- probably won't stop the bishops from continuing to stamp their feet like petulant two-year-olds who don't want to take a nap."Because that is totally what Jesus would do."

Links to Movie and Articles on Vatican versus American Nuns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALx-eolC1FI&feature=youtube_gdata_player_

http://ncronline.org/node/30413

http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/vatican-versus-american-nuns/

"Here Comes Nobody" by Maureen Dowd/ New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/dowd-here-comes-nobody.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

"I ALWAYS liked that the name of my religion was also an adjective meaning all-embracing.

I was a Catholic and I wanted to be catholic, someone engaged in a wide variety of things. As James Joyce wrote in “Finnegans Wake:” “Catholic means ‘Here comes everybody.’" 
So it makes me sad to see the Catholic Church grow so uncatholic, intent on loyalty testing, mind control and heresy hunting. Rather than all-embracing, the church hierarchy has become all-constricting.It was tough to top the bizarre inquisition of self-sacrificing American nuns pushed by the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law. Law, the former head of the Boston archdiocese, fled to a plush refuge in Rome in 2002 after it came out that he protected priests who molested thousands of children...The latest kooky kerfuffle was sparked by the invitation to Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, to speak at a graduation ceremony at Georgetown University on Friday. The silver-haired former Kansas governor is a practicing Catholic with a husband and son who graduated from Georgetown. But because she fought to get a federal mandate for health insurance coverage of contraceptives and morning-after pills, including at Catholic schools and hospitals, Sebelius is on the hit list of a conservative Catholic group in Virginia, the Cardinal Newman Society, which militates to bar speakers at Catholic schools who support gay rights or abortion rights....

"Vatican Decree Calls Attention to Place of Women Religious" by Olga Bonfiglio/Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olga-bonfiglio/vatican-decree-calls-attention-to-place-of-women-religious_b_1516232.html


"While Pope John Paul II's relationship with American nuns appeared to be a reining in of what he considered the more exuberant experiments and freedoms they embraced after the Vatican II reforms (1962-65), Pope Benedict XVI's recent decree, the "Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious" is drop-dead shocking.
After a three-year study, the Vatican recently charged that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has been too tolerant in its views about homosexuality, too silent in opposing abortion and contraception and too amenable to "radical feminist themes" that are regarded as incompatible with Church teaching, including women's ordination. The LCWR represents 80 percent of the 57,000 nuns in the United States.

Actually, such reprimands are nothing new in Church history, said Dr. Margaret Thompson, professor of history, political science and women's studies at Syracuse University. Every time women religious attempt to break new ground or re-dedicate themselves to new needs among the People of God, the Church questions them.

Since Vatican II, no one knew the cost of change more intimately than Anita Caspary of the Immaculate Heart Community of Los Angeles, Calif. As Mother General (1963-70) and president (1970-73) she led her sisters through the Vatican II reforms with careful deliberation. Nevertheless, in that process she experienced the wrath and power of hierarchical politics and the forced relinquishment of her community's canonical status.

According to Caspary's account in her book "Witness to Integrity: The Crisis of the Immaculate Heart Community of California" (2003), James Francis McIntyre, the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, did not accept the renewal of Vatican II and came into conflict with the IH Community over its decisions to change the habit, form new structures of convent governance and re-design daily devotional practices.

"Slowly we came to realize that what we claimed for ourselves -- the right to make decisions affecting our personal lives -- we could not surrender," Caspary stated in her book.
 Caspary died in October 2011 at the age of 95; however, in my 2004 telephone interview with her, she stressed that the conflict with Cardinal McIntryre occurred within the cultural context of the history of women at the time. 

"Women were always secondary among priests, governors, and men in general," she said. "The dependency of women religious on the hierarchy wasn't a choice, it was prescribed. And we didn't believe in it..." 

Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Amen, Sister Anita! The subordination of women to the hierarchy in the Catholic Church should end now. Nuns today should follow in the footsteps of the courageous Immaculate Heart Community. We need  gutsy nuns, like Sister Anita Caspary, to  challenge the hierarchy today and to stand publically for justice for women in the church including for women priests!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org
sofiabmm@aol.com

Open letter to the U.S. bishops: Let's not be a laughingstock, OK? May. 18, 2012 By Robert Blair Kaiser

http://ncronline.org/node/30413

Commentary

"Back in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas warned his fellow scholars about taking positions that brought ridicule upon the church. "Ne fides rideatur," he said. Literally, "Don't let the faith be laughed at."
Last week, we learned the U.S. bishops were launching an investigation into the supposedly subversive activities of our Catholic Girl Scouts.According to The Associated Press [1], Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Ft. Wayne-South Bend, Ind., and his fellows on the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth will be looking into the Scouts' "possible problematic relationships" with groups like Doctors Without Borders, the Sierra Club, and Oxfam International "because they support family planning."
Only a few weeks ago, we were laughing over the news that our bishops are investigating the doctrinal purity of our religious sisters, the most admired Catholics in the land. Who of us is not hooting this week over something even sillier, this latest attempt by our bishops to swoop down, Taliban-like, on our Girl Scouts?
What, pray tell, is wrong with family planning? Rhoades would have us believe it's against Catholic teaching. He is referring, no doubt, to the so-called papal ban on birth control promulgated in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical, "Humanae Vitae," which took the position that every marital act had to be "open to the transmission of life." The pope's courtiers said that meant couples were guilty of grave sin if, while making love, they used any artificial means of birth control, like condoms, IUDs or the pill.
Since then, Catholic couples have vetoed the pope by simply exercising responsible parenthood in good conscience. They do so emboldened by their own common sense; an open worldwide debate on birth control during the 1960s; and a leaked report from Pope Paul VI's own Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth-rate, which advised the pope to reverse the teaching of his predecessor, Pius XI, which stated that Catholics who practiced any form of birth control, including rhythm, would go to hell.
Paul VI did not follow the advice of his own commission, not so much because he disagreed with its reasoning, arrived at after three years of serious debate, but because his ultra-conservative advisers in the Roman Curia couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do with all those souls he and his predecessors, Pius XI and Pius XII, had condemned to hell. I paraphrase the pope's actual words: If he dared change the not-so-ancient (1931) teaching, he would lose his moral authority. The ironic outcome: He didn't change the teaching and lost his moral authority. Most of the Catholic world ignored his thoughts on marital morality that were so antithetical to the thoughts of his own commission. Almost half of the Catholic bishops in the world issued statements that nuanced "Humanae Vitae" into nothing. In the next 10 years of his reign, the pope never wrote another encyclical.
In effect, the papal teaching on birth control was not, as the theologians were saying, "received." Therefore, it is not a teaching at all. In my exhaustive history of the papal birth control commission and its aftermath, I cite a learned paper, "The Doctrine of Reception" by James Coriden, a former president of the Canon Law Society of America, which lays the rationale for that position. In that paper, he gives a pretty good account of Catholic history, where the common sense of the people (the sensus fidelium) often overrode papal nonsense..."


[Robert Blair Kaiser has just republished his history of the papal birth commission and its aftermath, The Politics of Sex and Religion, as an ebook. It is available for free [2].]

---

Source URL: http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/open-letter-us-bishops-lets-not-be-laughingstock-ok

Links:

[1] http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/gungrey/Article_2012-05-10-Girl%20Scouts-Catholics/id-d9df03f9cc424d8aa3e48bbfd02c8fe5

[2] https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151118

Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Thanks to Robert Kaiser for such a concise article of the history of the Birth Control Commission that all Catholics should know. Yes, indeed, the U.S. bishops are a laughingstock in pursuing the nuns and the Girls Scouts!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP

Kansas Governor Signs Bill Allowing Pharmacies and Doctors to Deny Women Birth Control/ GOP War on Women and Decisions Over Own Health Care Echoes Catholic Bishops Agenda

"A bill that allows pharmacists and doctors to deny women access to contraception has been signed into law by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. This new law is just one of many bills that the Republican governor has signed since he came into office. He has recently signed legislation that pressures abortion clinics with new regulations, legislation that imposes long waiting times to get an abortion, and legislation that bans insurance companies from covering abortion procedures.

This new bill, known as the Heath Care Rights of Conscience Act and sponsored by GOP state Rep. Lance Kinzer, was signed into law on Monday, and according to The Kansas City Star:

“The new law would bar anyone from being required to prescribe or administer a drug they “reasonably believe” might result in the termination of a pregnancy,” and could “open the door for a pharmacist to refuse a request for something like the “morning-after” pill.”

Basically, any woman in Kansas could walk into a pharmacy to pick up a birth control prescription and be denied her medication by the pharmacist. All the pharmacists needs to do is claim to be acting on his or her religious convictions. And what’s worse, the pharmacist doesn’t have to refer the prescription to another pharmacy. Likewise, doctors also can deny women contraception and use religious liberty to get away with it. Even a woman who becomes pregnant through rape could be denied access to birth control..."


Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Kansas Governor Signs Bill Allowing Pharmacies and Doctors to Deny Women Birth Control/ GOP War on Women and Decisions Over Own Health Care Echoes Catholic Bishops Agenda Against Women as Free Moral Decision Makers in Birth Control and other hot button issues. What ever happened to respect for Primacy of Conscience? It appears when it comes to pelvic issues, the bishops and Republicans are in a lockstep march backwards to the Middle Ages. Needed badly are women priests and women bishops in decision making roles within the church!
Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
www.arwp.org

Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests- YouTube Movie of Laying of Hands by Bishop and People, Prayer of Consecration, Investiture with Stole and Chasuble and Anointing of Hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ewutefTmE&feature=colike

This video is Part 5  of Ordination which took place in Ormond Beach, Fl. on April 14, 2012 and includes the Laying on of Hands, Prayer of Consecration for the priests, Investiture with Stole and Chasuble and the Anointing of Hands.

'Bless Me Father, for I have Sinned. I am a Girl Scout" /Patricia McGuire: Girls Scouts and God's Grace

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a Girl Scout.

Recently, I shook hands with more than 200 Girl Scouts assembled at Trinity for the annual "In Your Honor" ceremony celebrating the Gold Award and Silver Trefoil Award Girl Scouts of the Nation's Capital Council. As I looked around the room packed with girls, parents and families, I marveled at how this organization keeps girls focused on healthy, wholesome, positive activities in a world where too many young women face exploitation, abuse, disparagement, discouragement and the plague of low expectations. A quick sample of the Gold Award projects clearly demonstrates the plain fact that the Girl Scouts today are about a whole lot more than cookie sales. In one project, a girl developed brochures and video guides to help teenagers dealing with family members who have Alzheimer's. Another project focused on introducing kids living in a homeless shelter to science, technology, engineering and math. Yet another project took on the problem of cyberbullying. Many of the projects focused on literacy, environmental action and drug/alcohol education.
The next morning I opened the newspaper and read that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched an investigation into the Girl Scouts.
Well, Father, I was really just a Brownie. It didn't last long. Mom pulled me out after the episode with the cookies. I ate more than I sold. About five times.
Apparently, the bishops have received some complaints about Girl Scout troops affiliated with Catholic parishes and schools. Seems that some troops have used materials that conflict with Catholic teaching. And there's that longstanding rumor about some tie to Planned Parenthood, which the Girl Scouts have repeatedly refuted.
"Patricia McGuire, President of Trinity Washington University, reports in the Huffington Post that Catholic bishops have received complaints about Girl Scout troops affiliated with Catholic parishes and schools. Among complaints are that that some troops have used materials that conflict with Catholic teaching, and a longstanding rumor about some tie to Planned Parenthood, which the Girl Scouts have repeatedly refuted..."

Suzanne Thiel, RCWP, on PBS - "Reforming Catholicism"

As part of the CTA conference here in Portland this weekend, Suzanne Thiel was on the radio on PBS

Roman Catholic Woman Priest Suzanne Thiel ministers to a community in Portland Oregon.

If you go to this link and under the title "Reforming Catholicism" there are 2 lines, first one is "air date", second one is "Posted by Allison Frost" right below that is a small triangle in a circle. If you click on that triangle, you can listen to the show. the little gray arrow to the right is the MP# download button, where you can download it to your computer

http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/reforming-catholicism/

What Great Teachers These Young People Are!

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/05/13/2186828/same-sex-couple-denied-entrance.html

Faithful America: Sign a Petition to tell the Bishops: Leave the Girl Scouts Alone

For almost 100 years, the Roman Catholic Church has had a strong relationship with the Girl Scouts. Scores of local Girl Scout troops are hosted by Catholic parishes, and about 25% of Girl Scouts are Catholic. But now, in response to completely bogus charges by right-wing extremists, conservative Roman Catholic bishops have opened an official inquiry into the Girl Scouts of the USA -- despite the fact that the Girl Scouts do not take any positions on sexuality, birth control, or abortion.1 We can't let what happened to Catholic religious sisters happen again to the Girl Scouts. The millions of girls and families who participate in the Girl Scouts don't deserve to become victims of right-wing culture wars. Sign our petition and tell the Bishops: Leave the Girl Scouts alone!

"Nuns on the Frontier" By ANNE M. BUTLER/ New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/opinion/nuns-on-the-frontier.html?src=recg

Fernandina Beach, Fla.

THE recent Vatican edict that reproached American nuns for their liberal views on social and political issues has put a spotlight on the practices of these Roman Catholic sisters. While the current debate has focused on the nuns’ progressive stances on birth control, abortion, homosexuality, the all-male priesthood and economic injustice, tension between American nuns and the church’s male hierarchy reaches much further back.

In the 19th century, Catholic nuns literally built the church in the American West, braving hardship and grueling circumstances to establish missions, set up classrooms and lead lives of calm in a chaotic world marked by corruption, criminality and illness. Their determination in the face of a male hierarchy that, then as now, frequently exploited and disdained them was a demonstration of their resilient faith in a church struggling to adapt itself to change..."

Anne M. Butler, a professor emerita of history at Utah State University, is the author of the forthcoming book “Across God’s Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850-1920.


Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Will the bishops ever learn! They keep repeating the same bad behavior- treating women as second class citizens in the church- through the centuries.  As Anne Butler concludes, Catholics in the pews appreciate the nuns. The bishops should hang their heads for their despicable treatment of the nuns who in many cases are the unsung heroes of the American Frontier. The power behind the Sisters, (not ecclesiastical!!) was greater than the challenges they faced in founding schools, hospitals and orphanages under the most trying of circumstances! Let's just admit that the hierarchy, then or now, cannot handles gutsy women who usually find a way when there is no way! Perhaps, in this latest clash with the Vatican, they will declare their independence from male control, and open the door to a future of nun priests. Now wouldn't that be grand!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org

More Evidence of the Censorship of Conscience by Catholic Hierarchy in Violation of Church Teaching

The primacy of conscience is a major teaching of the church. Even Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the church, whom Catholic conservatives like to quote, once said that he'd rather die excommunicated then to have violated his conscience! And now we have the Catholic hierarchy violating this major tenet of the Catholic faith! In addition, Pope Benedict has stated in his writing that we must follow our consciences no matter what punishment we face! Why don't the U.S. Catholic bishops and the Vatican follow their own teachings? There is something wrong with this picture!

 Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/washingtons-catholic-archbishop-georgetown-president-spar-over-graduation-invitation-to-kathleen-sebelius/2012/05/15/gIQA01ZLSU_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Washington Post editorial at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/with-sebelius-invite-another-blow-to-georgetowns-catholic-identity/2012/05/16/gIQAYVQ5TU_blog.html

A petition supporting GU's choice of Sibelius as speaker is at:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2518/p/dia/action/public/index.sjs?action_KEY=10452as speaker

Catholic Organizations, including the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, Support Girl Scouts

Media Contacts:

Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 859-684-4247, Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests

Erin Saiz Hanna, 401.588.0457, Women’s Ordination Conference

Marianne Duddy-Burke, 617.669.7810, DignityUSA

Jon O’Brien, 202.332.7995, Catholics for Choice

Nicole Sotelo, 773.404.0004 x285, Call To Action

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, May 15, 2012

Catholics Come Out in Support of Girl Scouts

“These are exactly the type of young women needed in the Church today.”

As Catholic organizations we congratulate the Girl Scouts on their 100^th year anniversary and thank them for modeling the best of what girls can be: strong, bold, value-based young women. What a shame that Catholic officials cannot see these young women for the gift they are to the church and world.

The Bishops’ attempt to exert pressure on the Girl Scouts is the most recent episode in an increasingly troubling sequence of attacks against women and girls, both inside and outside the Church. From the hierarchy’s mandate against the nuns to its most recent heavy-handed inquiry into the Girl Scouts, the Bishops’ actions not only reveal the growing gap between the hierarchy and the faithful, but also sends harmful messages about womanhood to our daughters in faith. We urge the Bishops to cease the investigations.

As Catholic organizations that seek a more just and inclusive church, we stand in solidarity with the 59 million women and girls who have been a part of the Girl Scouts. We thank these women and girls—our sisters— for their witness of what it means to be a woman who knows her own giftedness in the face of a religion or society that too often undervalues her self-worth.

We invite those who would like to thank the Girl Scouts for their contribution to the church and society to join us in our Twitter campaign #GodLovesTheGirlScouts.

The Girl Scouts mission states that it “builds girls of courage, confidence and character” and for that we are grateful. These are exactly the type of young women needed in the Church today: those who know their self-worth goes beyond that which is measured by the Bishops’ investigation, but that is rooted in the simple fact that they are beloved children of God.

This statement is signed and supported by the following Catholic organizations:

Jim FitzGerald, Executive Director

Call To Action

Jon O’Brien, Executive Director

Catholics for Choice

Allen and Sylvia Moore, Co-Presidents

CORPUS

Marianne Duddy-Burke, Executive Director

DignityUSA

Anne Harter, Coordinator

Faithful of Southern Illinois

Tom Quinn, Liaison

Federation of Christian Ministries, Roman Catholic Faith Community Council

Ruth Steinert Foote

Greater Cincinnati Women-Church

Jeannine Gramick and Donna Quinn, Co-Coordinators

National Coalition of American Nuns

Francis DeBernardo, Director

New Ways Ministry

Gloria Ulterino

RAPPORT

Suzanne Thiel, President

Roman Catholic Womenpriests, USA

Karen Schwarz

San Francisco Bay Area Women-Church

Regina Bannan, President

Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference

Mary Hunt and Diann Neu, Co-Directors

Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual

Erma Durkin

Women-Church Baltimore

Erin Saiz Hanna, Executive Director

Women's Ordination Conference

Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 

Media Contact, Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests

“The Vatican Knew What Happened to Argentinean Desaparecidos”

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/argentina-14979/ 05/ 9/2012

According to an Argentine newspaper, a secret document bishops sent to Paul VI in April 1978 highlighted the Church’s role during the dictatorship years and the disappearances of thousands of political opponents...The Holy See knew.” During the dictatorship years, an undetermined number of people “disappeared” at the hands of the armed forces. Estimates range from the 7,000-8,000 estimated by Videla - the dictator himself - to the nearly 30,000 claimed by various humanitarian organizations. Before the 1978 World Cup, the Argentine Conference of Bishops informed the Vatican of what was going on in the country: repression, murders, and disappearances. In his article in Argentine newspaper Página/12, Horacio Verbitsky writes that a “secret document” was sent to Paul VI by Argentine bishops. The document which dates back to April 1978, refers to meetings between Bishops Raul Primatesta, Juan Carlos Aramburu, and Vicente Zazpe and dictator Jorge Videla. The document says that the issue of the desaparecidos or missing individuals, was openly raised during these meetings (which the clergy say were “cordial and sincere”), and that the bishops also asked where the dead were located. The bishops said that in many cases, the government could not give “a satisfactory answer,” despite the fact that Bishop Primatesta insisted “the Church wants to understand and cooperate” with the State. Videla himself said on several occasions that he had “an excellent relationship - very friendly, honest, and open” with the Catholic Church... "

Six Things You Can Do to Support the Sisters/ Nun Justice

Let the sisters know you stand with them! Sign the petition or share it with friends! Let's get 57,000 signatures — one for every sister in the United States!

2. Write

Tell Church officials that you support the sisters. Write to the Apostolic Nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador in the U.S., other officials, or to your local newspaper.
Download a sample letter and suggested talking points.

3. Vigil

Join or organize a public vigil Tuesdays in May. If you're unable to join a vigil in person, join a Virtual Vigil in spirit by posting a photo showing your support!
Find a vigil near you.

4. Share

Follow Nun Justice on Tumblr
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5. Pledge

For Pentecost, make a financial pledge to support the sisters by directing or redirecting a contribution to your local community of women religious. Help us tally the total amount pledged by recording your pledge amount here.

6. Pray Now and on May 29th

Pray for the sisters on your own and organize a prayer service in your parish or small faith community on May 29th, during Pentecost week, when LCWR begins its meeting. A sample prayer service is available to use.

The Nun Justice Project is a grassroots movement supported by the following organizations: American Catholic Council, Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, Call To Action, Catholics for Choice, CORPUS, DignityUSA, FutureChurch, New Ways Ministry, RAPPORT (Renewing a Priestly People, Ordination Reconsidered Today), Voice of the Faithful, WATER: Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, Women's Ordination Conference.

Youtube Movie of Homily at Ordination of Two Roman Catholic Women Priests by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan , Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjbScswA2WA
Link to Homily by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP

Video

Ormond Beach Ordination Part3.mpeg - YouTube Homily by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP Ordination of Miriam Picconi and Wanda Russell as priests in Ormond Beach, Florida on April 14, 2012

"Pope Declares Hildegard of Bingen a Saint"/by James Martin S. J./America/ Hildegard Challenged Corrupt Hierarchy for Abuses

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=5117

VATICAN CITY (Catholic News Service) -- "Although she was never canonized, St. Hildegard of Bingen is to be added to the Catholic Church's formal list of saints, and Catholics worldwide may celebrate her feast day with a Mass and special readings by order of Pope Benedict XVI.

The Vatican announced May 10 that the pope formalized the church's recognition of the 12th-century German Benedictine mystic, "inscribing her in the catalogue of saints." The same day, the pope advanced the sainthood causes of 19th-century U.S. Bishop Frederic Baraga of Marquette, Mich., and of Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a member of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, N.J., who died in 1927. The pope's order regarding St. Hildegard recognizes her widespread fame of holiness and the that Catholics have venerated her for centuries.
In a 2010 series of audience talks about women's contributions to the church, Pope Benedict dedicated two talks to St. Hildegard. He said she is a worthy role model for Catholics today because of "her love for Christ and his church, which was suffering in her time, too, and was wounded also then by the sins of priests and laypeople." In St. Hildegard's time, there were calls for radical reform of the church to fight the problem of abuses made by the clergy, the pope had said. However, she "reproached demands to subvert the very nature of the church" and reminded people that "a true renewal of the ecclesial community is not achieved so much with a change in the structures as much as with a sincere spirit of penitence...."
Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Like the prophets of old, Hildegard preached an unpopular message of reform to Church officials.
Hildegard castigated Pope  Anastasius IV, she wrote: "Wherefore, O man, you who sit on the papal throne, you despise God when you embrace evil. For in failing to speak out against the evil of those in your company, you are certainly not rejecting evil. Rather you are kissing it. And so the whole world is being led astray through unstable error, simply because people love that which God cast down." (Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, vol. 1.)
Hildegard allowed the burial of a man who had been excommunicated in the monastery cemetery. Several days after his interment, Church officials ordered his body exhumed and threatened Hildegard's community with interdict, which meant her nuns could not receive the sacraments or recite the divine office if it did not comply. Hildegard chose interdict and conscience.
Saints Hildegard  Mother Thedore Guerin and Mother Mary MacKillop have two things in common. They were punished by the hierarchy of their time. Mother Guerin and Mother MacKillop were two nuns who were excommunicated by their bishops. Hildegard and her nuns were put under interdict. Now Pope Benedict has officially canonized these three  gutsy women as saints and role models of holiness for the entire church. Obviously the take home message is the church is always in the process of reforming itself in every age, and excommunication is not a barrier to sainthood. If Hildegard were alive today, she would probably have some harsh words to say to Benedict and the bishops who covered up the rape and sexual abuse of thousands of youth.  I disagree with the Pope who stated that her way would be penitence without change of structures, both are needed.
So cheer up, all you who face the ire of the hierarchy for your prophetic witness to justice and equality in the church including nuns and Girl Scouts. I consider my excommunication for prophetic obedience to the Gospel a badge of honor! It is a joy to walk in the footsteps of these gutsy women saints, trusting that there is nothing to fear because the power of God is with the marginalized and those who seek justice for all including the Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement. One day, I pray, a future pope will welcome our movement and that the church will adopt the structural changes that will transform it into a more open, inclusive, just and egalitarian community of faith, rooted in Jesus' example in the Gospels.  
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org
sofiabmm@aol.com

The Vatican vs. the Nuns. by John Shelby Spong

  ..."Dissent in an autocratic system strikes at the root of authority and threatens the imposed conformity. It now appears that the “independence” of these sisters had to be countered and the sisters brought into line, that is into conformity with the teaching of the bishops. So now a “visitation” has been ordered by the Vatican and, once again an all-male hierarchy in the name of a God named Father, has directed that women be disciplined and forced to conform to the patriarchal ordained leadership of the church if they want to remain in religious orders. Since no women can be ordained, there is no way that women in this church will ever be empowered to do anything, no court to which they can appeal this abuse of authority and the world gets to see how empty the idea still promulgated by this church really is: namely that treating women as second class citizens does not mean that women are regarded as “inferior” only that they are “different.” In this church all power flows through the hierarchy of the ordained and since no woman is in that flow chart, women are inevitably and finally powerless. “Separate but equal” was once nothing more than propagandistic perfume sprinkled over the stench of segregated America, now it is to be propagandistic perfume sprinkled over the stench of a patriarchal, sexist church. “Separate but equal” is always separate, but it is never equal!..."

US Catholic Bishops vs. Girl Scouts/ You Can't Make this Stuff Up!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us/bishops-group-to-investigate-girl-scouts.html?_r=1
The Girl Scouts are in trouble for Links to organizations like Doctors Without Borders that promote emergency contraception! Give me a break!
What world do these bishops live in? How about the real world where women are raped in war torn areas of the world?
It is old news that most pew-going Catholics  have used artificial birth control.
What's next for the bishops- a communion line shake down?
Perhaps an inquisition of Catholic workers on their bedroom practices?
A Catholic teacher has been fired for using in vitro fertilization to get pregnant.
It appears these bishops are engaged in a ill-advised war on women and girls. 
Soon there will be more Catholics excommunicated or fleeing the institutional church then "loyal" to the Pope and hierarchy Catholics who tow the ecclesiastical line in the church.
The silver lining in this dark cloud is that Roman Catholic Women Priests are growing in numbers and offering inclusive liturgies where all are welcome to receive sacraments. 
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
sofiabmm@aol.com
www.arcwp.org

US Catholic Bishops Cover Sign Identifying Site in DC/ Afraid of Nun Justice Supporters?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s720x720/536011_10151679240220368_114512755367_24119962_2060796491_n.jpg

This photo was on the Women's Ordination Conference Facebook page today. Interesting that the USCCB covered their sign because people were coming in support of the sisters and had been told to meet by the sign. Still over 60 people showed up at the USCCB headquarters. 

U.S. Catholic Bishops Take On Girl Scouts after the Nuns/War on Women!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/a-lightning-rod-in-the-culture-wars-girl-scouts-come-under-scrutiny-from-catholic-bishops/2012/05/10/gIQA38Z4FU_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriendrovince-schaeffer

"A lightning rod in the culture wars, Girl Scouts come under scrutiny from Catholic bishops"

Bridget Mary's Response: Unbelievable! Is there no end to the meddling by the Catholic bishops? This takes the cake, or should I say, cookie! What's next an official Catholic boycott of Girl Scout cookies! 

I am sure the nuns and women priests who have been excommunicated by the hierarchy, will support the Girl Scouts and their programs to foster leadership!  We need more women power. 

Hey everyone, let's reach out and purchase more Girl Scout cookies too?! Don't let the Catholic bishops control the Girl Scouts! 

 

"At issue are concerns about program materials that some Catholics find offensive, as well as assertions that the Scouts associate with other groups espousing stances that conflict with church teaching. The Scouts, who have numerous parish-sponsored troops, deny many of the claims and defend their alliances."

"US Priests Reportedly Behind Vatican Crackdown on Nuns"/ Take the Survey on MSNBC to Express Your Support of Nun Justice/ Bridget Mary's Response to MSNBC article and support of Nun Justice

...."Gibson, a Religion News Service correspondent, said the crackdown shows that concerns about poverty and economic inequality are taking a backseat in the church.“There’s so much riding on the gay marriage battle, and on abortion rights, and on contraception that [bishops] want everybody in the church to be doubling down on those issues and not being distracted by social justice,” Gibson told msnbc.com.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/10/11597887-us-priests-reportedly-behind-vatican-crackdown-on-nuns
Bridget Mary: What ever happened to the Vatican following the Gospel? Jesus' primary concern was living justice and compassion, loving God and neighbor. He taught "whatsoever you do the least of my sisters and brothers that you do unto me". Have the bishops tossed justice and compassion out the window in this latest power play to bully the nuns? I don't recall anything Jesus said about contraception or gay rights. And Gibson leaves out the "third elephant in the room, women's ordination." The nuns are in big trouble with the Vatican for their support of gender equality including women priests!  If the nuns go non-canonical, declare their independence from Vatican control, the women religious who have been doing priestly ministry for years, could be ordained. Just think how blessed Catholics would be to have nun priests. The nuns' views on contraception, gay rights and women's ordination reflect ordinary Catholics attitudes. The Vatican's bullying of the nuns is an abuse of power and a fiasco, both morally, spiritually. Another reminder that the hierarchy is not the church, the people of God are and they are supporting the nuns! 


...."Bishops have been playing defense for years in the wake of the church's sexual abuse crisis, and Gibson said they've been looking for issues on which they can reassert their moral authority.“These issues are ones they think they can do that on, so they really want to show that... they’re calling the shots,” he added.


Bridget Mary: You have got to be kidding. They have lost all moral credibility! The global sexual abuse coverup belongs at the door of the Vatican. This bullying of the nuns, most of whom are elderly and have devoted their entire lives to service to those in need, is the last desperate gasp of a patriarchal church, out of control! 


..."American Catholics are showing their support for the nuns, organizing vigils all over the country to advocate for the end of the crackdown. The Nun Justice Project is one organization standing with the nuns against what they call "a prime example of how the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church misuses its power to diminish the voice of women."An online petition started by Nun Justice had garnered more than 41,000 signatures at the time this story was written....The LCWR will meet starting May 29 to begin its discussion of the Vatican's doctrinal assessment and the implementation plan put forth by the Holy See. The Vatican has the power to remove the official recognition of the LCWR.

Bridget Mary: Hopefully, the LCWR, in prophetic obedience to the Spirit,  will affirm primacy of conscience in the hot button issues and  declare independence from Vatican control. It is not like the nuns need a good housekeeping seal of approval of the Vatican in the 21st century. As the young people today say, nuns rock!

Do you think the Vatican is justified in cracking down on U.S. nuns?"

Bridget Mary: Take the survey! Express your outrage. Support Nun Justice! The U.S. nuns should be investigating the Vatican for its global sexual abuse coverup that has allowed pedophiles to rape and sodomize children and youth. The Vatican's blatent bullying effort of the nuns is an exercise in hypocricy that boggles the mind! One recent example, the horrific, Philly sexual abuse cover up that goes to the top! And the Vatican has the nerve to investigate elderly nuns who have served the church for decades!

Bridget Mary Meehan, SFCC, ARCWP

I am a Sister for Christian Community, an independent Catholic religious community of Sisters, that was founded in the 1970's to offer a new paradigm of religious life for women who did not want to be controlled by the hierarchy, but wanted to be a leaven of Christian community in the church and world. I was ordained a Roman Catholic Woman Priest in Pittsburgh in 2006 and bishop in 2009.

Vigils for Nun Justice in Support of LCWR Are Being Held During May Outside Cathedrals in the U.S.

Tuesday evening May 8th Prayerful Vigil Portland, Oregon outside St. Marys Cathedral to support Catholic sisters. Catholics prayed this evening for the religious women and their leadership the LCWR as they begin to deal with the latest mandates from the Vatican. This is just one of many vigils taking place around the country on Tuesday nights during May. The message is clear that "The people are the Church" not the Vatican and that the people support the sisters and their positions on subjects of health care, women's equality in the church, gays and lesbians and freedom of conscience. Vigils in support of nun justice are being held on Tuesdays outside cathedrals in the United States.

Dear Cardinal Dolan: Is the Pope Catholic? Carol DeChant

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-dechant/is-the-pope-catholic-letter-to-cardinal-dolan_b_1472421.html

"Dear Cardinal Dolan,

Because "60 Minutes" names you Our Man in Rome (as the most likely to become the first American Pope), I'm writing to ask about the Vatican's investigation of American nuns -- presumably for not being "Catholic enough." Can you find out: What is the Pope thinking? Can you influence this disastrous endeavor?

Let's assume the Vatican lacks knowledge of the role of nuns in American history: those women who pioneered health treatments, of cancer and hospice (Sister Rose Hawthorne Lathrop), of alcoholics (Sister Mary Ignatia) and of lepers (Mother Marianne Cope); who built schools --through college -- to educate African- and Native-Americans more than 80 years before our Civil Rights movement began (St. Katharine Drexel); and the colonist who founded the first American religious order (St. Elizabeth Seton) to care for poor children. Does the Pope know that American nuns developed the first infant incubator, built and ran the hospital that became Mayo Clinic and founded the world's largest private school system? That nuns were once THE educated working women in our country, establishing orphanages, hospitals and social service agencies with creativity, grit and perseverance (and sometimes being silenced by their bishops for their innovations)...."

..."These questions remain: Does the Pope really want to force American Catholics to choose between standing with our nuns or with a male hierarchy interrogating them for nebulous infractions, with a stated agenda of keeping their findings secret? Where could we find Jesus in all this -- among our nuns, whose life of service is based on the Gospels' call to justice and charity, or in the Vatican, whose concerns appear to be power and secrecy? At the very least, let the investigators ask those who know our nuns best -- the homeless, prisoners, battered women and their children, immigrants, inner-city students, the disabled, the bereaved and the bullied -- if these elderly women are "Catholic enough." And if not, then who is? Is even the Pope "Catholic enough"?

Carol DeChant founded the public relations firm DeChant-Hughes & Associates, Inc. Her recent book is "Great American Catholic Eulogies" (ACTA Publishers).

Support the Sisters: Future Church's List of Practical Ways You Can Help

Support the Sisters! Dear FutureChurch Friends Thanks to you, there are now over 40,000 signatures on a coalition petition supporting US sisters after an unprecedented Vatican mandate sought to undermine their integrity and right to freely discern how to live the Gospel. Our coalition, the Nun Justice Project, has established a website, nunjustice.org, and identified Six Things You Can Do to Support the Sisters. We especially encourage you to: Record a financial pledge to support your local religious order Write the Apostolic Nuncio (download sample letters and addresses) Attend or sponsor a vigil (and view photos of same!) Pray now and during Pentecost week (download a sample prayer service.) Follow Nun Justice on Tumblr The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) represents eighty percent of the 57,000 sisters in the United States. Their board will meet May 29-June 2 (Pentecost week) to consider a response to the Vatican's action. FutureChurch is coordinating our advocacy with others in the church reform community. Please pray for LCWR leaders and for all women religious who are deeply wounded by this latest action. Thanks for taking action to support the sisters! Chris Schenk csj, and the board and staff of FutureChurch FutureChurch 17307 Madison Lakewood, OH 44111 216-228-0869 info@futurechurch.org www.futurechurch.org

Historic 2nd Ordination in Lexington, KY. - Donna Rougeux to be ordained a Roman Catholic Woman Priest

Donna Rougeux at the Vatican (second from left in alb and deacon stole) joined Fr. Roy Bourgeois, middle, Janice Sevre Duszynska, right, Ree Hudson, behind Fr. Roy and Erin Hanna from WOC on far left)

Press Release date:  May 9, 2012

Contact:  Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 859-684-4247, rhythmsofthedance@gmail.com

Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan, 703-505-0004, sofiabmm@aol.com

Donna Rougeux, 859-221-3082, dlrougeux@insightbb.com

See: http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/

http://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/

On Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. Donna Rougeux of Lexington, Kentucky will be ordained a priest in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.  The presiding bishop will be Bridget Mary Meehan of Falls Church, Virginia and Sarasota, Florida. The ceremony will take place at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, 3564 Clays Mill Road, Lexington, Kentucky 40503. 

As a pre-ordination event, on Saturday, June 2 at 10 a.m. "Pink Smoke Over the Vatican" will be shown at the Kentucky Theater, 214 East Main Street, Lexington 40507. The 58-minute documentary by filmmaker Jules Hart is the story of the justice struggle for ordination for women in the Roman Catholic Church. Tickets are $10 at the door. A Q/A will follow.

All are welcome to the ordination and pre-ordination screening.

Media are invited to a pre-ordination press conference on Saturday, June 9, at 1:30 p.m. at the church with the candidate and Bridget Mary Meehan. Call Janice (859-684-4247) to schedule an interview. 

The ordinand is theologically prepared and has many years of experience in ministry.  

Donna LeMaster Rougeux graduated from Lexington Theological Seminary in 2009 with a Masters in Pastoral Studies. She completed a residency with Hospice of the Bluegrass in 2010, earning four units of Clinical Pastoral Education. She has worked as a Hospice chaplain since she finished the residency and plans on becoming a certified chaplain. Donna is married and has three teenagers.

"I am so thankful that God has called me to work for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. I hope that my daughters, granddaughters and all women will be forever changed and affirmed to follow God's call because of the work that this movement has done and will do in challenging the Church to be the Kin-dom on Earth."

The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests rejoices in a “holy shakeup” that millions of Catholics worldwide welcome. The good news now is that male priests, bishops, a cardinal as well as theologians have expressed their support of female priests. They are following in the footsteps of Maryknoll Roy Bourgeois whose prophetic call for a dialogue on women priests is being heard in more and more places today in our Church.

“Nothing can stop the movement of the spirit toward human rights, justice and equality in our world and in our Church,” said Bridget Mary Meehan. “The full equality of women is the voice of God in our time.”

ARCWP celebrates the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the nearly 60,000 women religious they represent in the United States. We reject the unjust, bullying behavior of the scandal-ridden Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who has ordered the LCWR to reform itself more closely to "the teachings and discipline of the Church." It is the corrupt hierarchy, who has spent billions of dollars and devastated the lives of thousands of youth in the sexual abuse crisis that needs reform, not the dedicated nuns in the U.S. Now is the time for the LCWR to speak truth to power. Declare a nuns' emancipation proclamation from Vatican control. Challenge Vatican misogyny publicly. Affirm primacy of conscience and gender equality including women's ordination.

The Women Priests movement in the Roman Catholic Church advocates a new model of priestly ministry united with the people with whom we minister. We stand in prophetic obedience to Jesus who calls women and men to be disciples and equals. The movement began with the ordination of seven women on the Danube in 2002. Today there are over 130 in the movement worldwide. ARCWP is in the United States and Latin America. Our specific charism within the broader global Roman Catholic Women Priests initiative is to live Gospel equality and justice for women in the Church and in society now. We work in solidarity with the poor and marginalized for transformative justice in partnership with all believers. Our vision is to live as a community of equals in decision making both as an organization and within all our faith communities. We advocate the renewal of the vision of Jesus in the Gospel in our Church and world.