Pope Francis Tells Women to Breastfeed in Sistine Chapel

http://www.news.com.au/world/pope-francis-tells-women-to-breastfeed-in-sistine-chapel/news-story/5c3d28d966aeb9390924a097171a815e

"POPE Francis encouraged women attending a ceremony in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday to feel free to breastfeed their children in the church.

“The ceremony is a little long, someone’s crying because he’s hungry. That’s the way it is,” the pontiff said."

"So Many Prelates, So Little Time" Celia Viggo Wexler is the author of Catholic Women Confront Their Church: Stories of Hurt and Hope.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celia-wexler/so-many-prelates-so-littl_b_14024504.html

"I continue to admire Pope Francis, but with reservations. 
Nothing has changed my opinion that he has a blind spot 
when it comes to women. 
True, he has convened a commission to consider 
ordaining women as deacons. That would give 
them more participation in the liturgy 
and allow them to preach at Mass.

But in the 21st century, when virtually no other
 profession is restricted to one gender, 
he’s insisted that the priesthood is and 
always will be for men only.

He says he’s for feminism, provided it doesn’t 
“demand uniformity” or “negate motherhood,” 
whatever that means.

Indeed, his regard for the maternal would qualify
 him for writing Hallmark cards. 
Recently he described us mothers as
 “testifying to tenderness” and praised us for our
 “unconditional selflessness.”
I’m all for motherhood, but motherhood
 doesn’t define us. 
That’s too limiting.

On other fronts - social justice, care for the
 environment, and his righteous anger at capitalist
 greed - I’ve admired him. What’s not to like about 
a man who washes the feet of prisoners, 
installs showers for the 
homeless in Vatican City and treats them to pizzas, 
and lives modestly, advising members of the 
clergy that they should do likewise?..."

Tony Flannery, Banned Irish Priest to Celebrate Mass in Ireland

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/banned-priest-defies-church-to-celebrate-mass

Thanks for leading the way toward justice and equality in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

www.arcwp.org, sofiabmm@aol.com

Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP

Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests

I am celebrating a Public Mass on January 22nd: You are welcome to come if you wish.

JAN 04

This January marks a significant milestone in my life; the eighteenth of the month is my seventieth birthday. I have wondered how best to mark it. I am not by nature a ‘party person’, so that option did not greatly appeal to me. Having spent forty years of my life ministering as a priest, I am now into my fifth year when I am forbidden by Church authorities to minister publicly. I have decided to honour my age, and my lifetime, by ignoring the Church censures, and celebrating a public Mass. Since I would not be allowed to do so either in a Catholic church or other Catholic controlled building, I have chosen, with the kind permission of the committee, to celebrate it in the local community hall in the village where I now live, which means that the Mass will take place in Killimordaly Community Centre on Sunday, January 22nd, at 2.30pm.

Why am I doing this? I don’t think that I am doing it just for the sake of defying Church authorities. Neither do I want it to be the beginning of an unofficial ministry on my part. I have no wish to start a new ecclesial movement. My reasons are as follows:

1. For the last five years I have been in something of a ‘limbo’ state, neither fully in or fully out of the priesthood. I have known from an early stage that there was no possibility of a resolution of the dispute between myself and the Vatican. So this public Mass will be for me a way of acknowledging the forty years of my life, and the work I did as a priest—a way of acknowledging who I am.

2. Since my dispute with the Vatican went public I have received enormous support from people all over the country, and indeed internationally. Eucharist is essentially a thanksgiving and In this Mass I am giving thanks for the good will of many people.

3. Since the beginning of my difference with the CDF, I have consistently held to one fundamental point. I don’t have any problem with the Church exercising authority. Every institution needs an authority structure. But authority must be exercised in a way that is just, and that respects the dignity of the person. In my experience, and in the experience of many others whom I have come to know in these past years, Church authority is exercised in a way that is unjust and abusive. For that reason I hope that my action will highlight once again the urgent need for change in the way the Vatican deals with people who express opinions that are considered to be at odds with official Church teaching.

4. In celebrating this public Mass I am also saying something else that I regard as important. The Mass, the Eucharist, is not in the ownership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or indeed of the Vatican. It belongs to the believing communities. That was where it began in the early Church, and where it finds its true meaning. My hope is, in this time of great change and upheaval in Church and society, that the believing communities begin, by whatever means possible, to regain ownership of the Eucharist. My late Redemptorist confrere, and distinguished theologian, Bernard Haring, put it this way: “The people of God have a God-given right to the Eucharist. On the basis of human law, to deprive the people of God of the Eucharist is objectively gravely sinful”

I am somewhat apprehensive about presiding at a public mass after almost 5 years in the wilderness, but to quote Macbeth, “to go back is as tedious as to go on” and I now feel the urge to take a positive step.

Directions:
For those who may wish to come to this event from various parts of the country, this is how you will find Killimordaly Community Centre:
Leave the M6 at exit 16, and take the road to KILTULLAGH.
Having reached the village of Kiltullagh – the church is clearly visible in front of you – follow the sign for Ballinasloe.
After about two hundred yards take a left off this road, and follow the signs for ATTYMON. After about a mile you will pass the hurling pitch on your right. A few hundred yards further on you will see the Community Centre, also on the right.

After the Mass refreshments will be available in the local pub, The Earl Inn, about a mile from the hall.

Somebody sent me the following, for directions on a Sat Nav or a phone. Don’t know if my copy and transfer of them will work.

Sat Nav coordinates
N53.306831,W8.621337
Smart phone directions Google Maps
https://goo.gl/maps/fy7weCczqCA2

The Berlin Daily Sun: REVEREND MARY C. WHITE ARCWP: WOMEN PRIESTS ARE LEADING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

http://www.berlindailysun.com/opinion/letters/60364-reverend-mary-c-white-women-priests-are-leading-the-catholic-church

To the editor:

I would like to offer clarification about the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.
Although the Vatican does not recognize our women priests, our ordinations are valid because we have apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church. Apostolic succession is the "unbroken tradition" going back "to Christ's example and to apostolic practices" that Father Kyle referenced in his letter.
The principal consecrating Roman Catholic bishop who ordained our first women bishops has apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church, and remains in communion with the Pope. This courageous man followed his conscience, and corrected a grave injustice within the Church by restoring the priesthood to women. Therefore, our bishops validly ordain women (and men) as deacons, priests, and bishops.
Women priests are not leaving the Catholic Church. We are leading it! Women priests are modern day prophets, who proclaim Jesus' radical message of equality and justice for all people. We are following our consciences, and answering God's call to serve the Church we love.
The Roman Catholic Church is experiencing great challenges. The number of celibate male priests is dwindling. The current number of celibate male seminarians is not enough to replace priests who retire or die. The Church in the United States has paid over four billion dollars for sexual abuse settlements. Mass attendance is down. Financial support of the Church is down. Catholic parishes and Catholic schools are closing. The Church is in desperate need of healing, renewal, and transformation.
The People of God... who are the Church... are seeing these signs of the times, and are calling for the Church to start putting new wine into new wineskins. This includes ordaining women.
Scholarship and archaeological evidence show that women were ordained in the early church as priests, deacons, and bishops. Approximately 70 percent of American Catholics favor ordaining women as priests. The Vatican's own Commission determined there was absolutely nothing in the Scriptures to support the ban on ordaining women as priests.
I offer to view the award-winning film, Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, which summarizes much of this evidence, with anyone who is interested in watching and discussing the film with me.
For those who identify themselves as Catholic, but are seeking a different way to be Catholic, I invite you to consider a local alternative. The Open Door is an inclusive and non-judgmental Catholic Faith Community. Our summer home is at the Shelburne Union Church. In the winter, we celebrate Mass in private homes, like the early Christians did.
The words of Jesus serve as our foundation: "I certainly will not reject anyone who comes to me" (John 6:37).
At The Open Door, all are invited to enjoy full participation in the Mass. All are welcome to share their wisdom and insight during our shared homilies. All are welcome to receive Communion.
I invite anyone who wants to receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Marriage (including those who are legally divorced or want a same sex marriage), Anointing, or Ordination to contact me.
Reverend Mary C. White, ARCWP
Pastor, The Open Door: An Inclusive and Non-judgmental Catholic Faith Community
NHRomanCatholicWomanPriest@gmail.com
(603) 616-9729
www.facebook.com/NHRomanCatholicWomanPriest/

Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan, right, a bishop in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), held up the hand of newly ordained priest Mary White of Gorham during a joyous service held in the Shelburne Union Church. (Photo by Edith Tucker )
http://www.newhampshirelakesandmountains.com/Articles-Berlin-Reporter-c-2015-06-24-160520.113119-Mary-White-ordained-Roman-Catholic-priest-in-ARCWP-liturgy.html

Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community in Sun City Liturgy and Blessing by Katy Zatsick and Community of Roman and Theresa Rodriguez

Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community at SCC

January 5, 2017

Blessings from God, Blessing for Ministry

Blessing for Roman and Theresa

All: Let us begin in the name of our God, God of Love sending blessings for all peoples, our Brother Jesus blessing us with reconciliation and forgiveness, Sophia God of Blessings and Ministry. Amen

Opening Prayer:

We come to worship you God who showers us with blessings and asks us to be blessing for others in our new year of 2017. May we cherish every amazing day, conscious of your Presence and abundance all around us. We ask you to give us insight into our ministry for 2017. May we celebrate with joy the many blessings we have received and will receive in 2017. May we pray for guidance to follow you with the People of God in ministry with them. Amen

LITURGY OF THE WORD

Readings from the Hebrew Testament Deuteronomy 15: 4-6, 10, 18

But there are to be no poor among you, for in the land of YHWH, your God, is giving to you as your inheritance. YHWH will bless you richly—but only if you obey YHWH, your God, in all things and conscientiously observe all the commandments that I give you this day. For YHWH, your God, will bless you as it was promised, and you will lend to many nations, but borrow from none. (verse 4)

Be generous to those in your debt and not with a grudging heart; and in return, YHWH will bless you in all things that you undertake and in all your endeavors. (verse 10)

Don't think it a hardship to set your indentured workers free. For six years, the services rendered to you were worth what it would have cost you for a hired hand. And YHWH, your God, will bless you everything you do. (verse 18) The word of God. All: Thanks be to God

Psalm response - From Psalm 103, Psalm 104

Response All: Bless YHWH, my soul!

All that is in me, bless God's holy Name!

Bless Yhwh, you angels,

you powers who do God's bidding

attentive to every word of command!

Bless YHWH, my soul!

Bless YHWH, you heavenly host,

your faithful ones who enforce God's will.

Bless YHWH, all creation, to the far reaches of God's reign! (psalm103)

Bless YHWH, my soul!

YHWH, my God, how great you are!

I will sing to you all my life...

May these reflections of min give God

as much pleasure as God gives me!

Bless YHWH, my soul! (psalm 104)

Second Reading: from Ann Wilson Schaef

Youth talks-Age teaches

Often, those who have the least to say talk the most. I have always respected my Elders as I was taught to do as a child. I was taught to listen to my Elders, and even though what they said sometimes did not seem particularly relevant to my life, I discovered that if I listened closely, I would always find what I needed.

As an adult, I am so grateful for these teachings. As I've been spending more and more time with Native Elders, I have learned that they do a lot of what sailors call tacking. When they want to go to the left, they go right, and when they want to go down, they go up or sideways. Only by staying with them and listening closely is it possible to put it all together. Life with the Elders is not linear, it moves in loops and spirals.

The most important teachings are often the ones that required waiting with and then the teaching may be learning to wait with. (Sept 13) Spending the day with a Native Elder feeds my mind, my soul, my creativity, and my being. I am grateful for all those who preserve the old ways. (April 16) There is so much to learn. We need the Elders from many places and many races to teach us! (April 26) Let us help each other remember how blessed we are to have Elders in our life. (August 19) It's time to listen to the wisdom of the Elders. (Dec 15 Emphasis is author's) The inspired word of Ann Wilson Schaef All: Thanks be to God.

From “Native Wisdom for White Minds” Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World, 1995.

Gospel: A reading taken from Matthew 5:3-11

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountainside, and after he sat down and the disciples had gathered around, Jesus began to teach them:

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit: the kindom of heaven is theirs.

Blessed are those who are mounting; they will be consoled.

Blessed are those who are gentle: they will inherit the land.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice they will have their fill.

Blessed are those who show mercy to others; they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are those whose hearts are clean: they will see God.

Blessed are those who work for peace: they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of their struggle for justice: the kindom of heaven is theirs.

The good news of Jesus, the Cosmic Christ! ALL: Glory and praise to you, Jesus our Brother. 

SHARED HOMILY

What and who have been a blessing in my life? How do you define blessing as used in Scripture?

Does it strike you that we “humans,” creation and angels bless God in the Psalm?

What have I learned from my Elders regarding my spiritual journey? How did they teach me?

What do I want to teach those who are the younger generations in my life?

CREED:
All: We believe in God the fountain of life flowing through every being. We believe in Jesus the Christ our Brother who reflects the face of God and the fullness of humanity. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of God in the cosmos, who calls us to love and serve without counting the cost. We believe in our global communion with all in the circle of life. Amen to loving actions on behalf of justice, healing , compassion and equality for all in our world. Amen.

Community petitions: With hearts filled with loving compassion, we lift up the needs of our families, friends, community and our country. All: God of blessings hear us.

For our country and all elected officials we pray:

For all those who are ill especially Wanda ARCWP who is recovering from a shoulder replacement, we pray:

Please add your intentions

Presider: We hold these and all our unspoken intentions in our hearts as we gather around the Banquet Table today.  As always we pray in our Brother Jesus name. All: Amen

Offertory of gifts and ourselves:

Co-Presider: Blessed are you, God of all creation, through your goodness we have this bread to offer which earth has given and human hands have made.  This bread is our community as we offer our lives in ministry for others' blessing. May we individually and as a community live your vision of peace and justice for all including the earth. This will become for us the bread of life. All:  Blessed be God forever.

Co-Presider: Blessed are you, God of all creation.  Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. This drink is our desire to live for the Common Good. For the ministry of wise elders Roman and Theresa as they companion younger couples of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This wine and juice will become our spiritual drink. All:  Blessed be God forever.

My sisters and brothers let us pray together that our gifts may be acceptable to our Creator Spirit and Love.

All:  May God accept these gifts from our hands, for the praise and glory of God's name, for our compassion and our ministry for the Common Good of all. Amen

Let us stand around our table and altar (Canon adapted from Diarmud O'Murchu for Holy Wisdom)

Sing: We are holy, holy, holy...you are holy, holy, holy..., I am holy, holy holy...We are holy, holy, holy...3times (Karen Drucker)

Invocation:

Presiders: That same Spirit we invoke upon the gifts of this Eucharistic table, bread of the grain & vine of the grape, that they may become the body and blood of Jesus – to nurture afresh in us the discerning gifts of

wisdom, light and truth. We ask the Spirit to bless each of our ministries in 2017

Invoking the memory of tradition:

Presider: Gathering the disciples around the table of shared wisdom,

Extending our hands All: Jesus took bread; blessed you God of all good gifts,

broke the bread and along with the cup, handed to those seeking nourishment, with these words: Take this all of you, eat and drink: This is my body which will be given up for you.

Presider After the meal, Jesus took another cup, poured out in a spirit of solidarity and empowerment.

Extending our hands: All: Jesus gave thanks and shared the cup with his friends, saying: Take this all of you and drink from it; this is the cup of my life-blood, the life of the new and everlasting covenant. In prophetic solidarity, it is poured out for you and for all.

Sustain one another in the power of sacred memory.

Eucharistic Acclamation All

In faith and hope we are sustained, in grace and dignity reclaimed, in praise, we thank our God.

Presiders: As we celebrate this sacred meal, we recall the wise and gracious gifts bestowed on us down through the ages; and we look forward in hope, knowing that you, our wise and faithful God,will continue to endow us with abundant blessings.

Second Invocation to Holy Wisdom: (Placing your right hand on the shoulder of the person next to you.) All: In the power of this Eucharistic meal, bless us afresh with the gift of the Spirit, that our hearts may be open

and receptive as you invite us into the fullness of life.

Presider: In union with all peoples living and dead, we unite our thoughts and prayers.

All: We ask for wisdom and courage:

-to share our wisdom as elders with others as ministers of you kindom..
- to discern more wisely your call to us in the circumstances
  of our daily lives;
- to act justly and courageously in confronting the pain and
  suffering that desecrates the Earth and its peoples;
- to take risks in being creative and proactive on behalf
  of the poor and marginalized;
- and to love all people with generosity of heart,
  beyond the labels of race, creed and color.

Presiders: And may we ever be aware and alert to the new things the Spirit makes possible, as our world unfolds amid pain and beauty, into the fullness of life to which all are called, participating in the wise and wonderful work of co-creation. All: Amen

Doxology: (lifting up the bread and wine)

All: In the wisdom of our triune God, Creator, Liberator, and Holy Spirit, we are blessed with the gifts of this Eucharistic table, and with all the good things bestowed upon our world, now and forever.  Amen.

Our Sign of Peace
Presider: God who teaches by life and example who has nourished us is our peace. Strangers and friends, male and female, old and young, the God of peace has broken down the barriers to bind us to God’s Self and to each other. Having tasted God’s goodness, let us as a community extend a sign of peace to one another.

LITANY FOR THE BREAKING OF BREAD
ALL: Loving God, You call us to live mercy, we will do so. Loving God, You call us to live justice, we will do so. Loving God, You call us to live equality, we will do so.

Presiders: This is Jesus our Brother, who calls us to open doors that are closed and share our bread on the altar of the world. All are invited to eat and drink at this sacred banquet of love. 

ALL: Jesus, we are worthy to receive you and to be your compassion and wise elder s for our world. Let us say to one another, You are a priest of God. We are the Body and blood of Christ. 

Please dip the bread as this is cold and flu season

Prayers of Gratitude, introduction and announcements

Blessing of Roman and Theresa on their ministry with young married couples-see sheet.

CONCLUDING RITE
Presiders: Our God is with you.
ALL: and also with you. 

Closing BLESSING
(Everyone please extend your hands in mutual blessing)

ALL: In gratitude, in deep gratitude for this moment, this meal, for our community, we give ourselves to you, O God. Be with us as we go out as changed people because we have shared Your Living Bread and cannot remain the same. Ask much of us, expect much from us, enable much by us, encourage many through us. Amen.

DISMISSAL
Presider: Go in the peace and Love of our Cosmic Christ. Let our ministry continue! ALL: Thanks be to God. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BLESSING OF THE MINISTRY OF WISE ELDERS

Theresa and Roman Rodriguez

MMOJ at SCC January 5 2017

Dear Loving God

Mary Mother of Jesus members in Sun City Center blessed Roman and Theresa members of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish during the January 5^th liturgy held at the home of Paddy Cooney.

Roman and Theresa last fall became Mentors and companions for the young married families at Our Lady of Guadalupe.

They meet every week with the families with children present for a study of the scriptures and how they apply to the lives of young married couples.

Theresa said, “It is a ministry of Presence for these families” as Roman and Theresa have been married for 60 years, have three sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

They do share their experience of marriage, their strength and their hope.

Jennifer Berezan sings "She Carries Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgDsmhqe51A&feature=youtu.be

In These Arms, A Song for All Beings — Jennifer Berezan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzPTHstpJ2I&feature=youtu.be

Upper Room Community Celebrates Epiphany With Inclusivity Theme

Debra Trees and Julie Corron led the Upper Room Community of Albany, NY, with the theme:  Inclusivity

Opening Prayer

O Holy One, we gather as the Christmas season concludes. Guide us on our journey to include the forgotten and marginalized, especially the forgotten and marginalized parts of our very selves. Amen.

Using the readings from the day, Deb led and concluded the shared homily.

Homily Starter.

Today’s readings remind me that we did not invent inclusion. It is far more ancient than our Inclusive Catholic Community. And yet inclusion is just as radical a concept today as it was in the Early Church. While we in 2017 are including women in the priesthood and diaconate, the Ephesians in their day were being reminded to include the Gentiles in their faith community. Our culture struggles with income inequality and today we celebrate the Magi giving gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to a child lying in a food trough. Jesus’ ministry was one of including the undesirables, the women, the poor, the tax collectors.

Inclusion is not new. It is an idea whose time has come again.

What did you hear?

What will you do?

What will it cost you?

Concluding Thoughts.

Epiphany: Inclusivity

All the way through the last 2000 years, and many thousands of years before that, inclusivity has been the opposite of tribal thought. The evolution of this dichotomy, of tribal living, is to include others. Let’s include the Gentiles; let’s include the women; let’s include the others. Here in this story of Jesus, we as humans make our initial “saved” attempt at inclusivity. We see our light, through the eyes of God. We see our inclusiveness, through the eyes of another. We embrace our responsibility to be grateful for this gift of inclusiveness, and share our own gifts, whatever they may be. Let us continue to share our unique gifts as we see them in our time and place, let us lead the way, and let us be grateful for our place in this continuum of love and light.  AMEN.

Compassion and Kinship: with Gregory Boyle SJ

https://youtu.be/ipR0kWt1Fkc

Language of the Heart by Kathy Sherman CSJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCiRALcHTbQ&feature=youtu.be

Sharon Brous: It's time to reclaim and reinvent religion – Ted Talk 2016 - Ted.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AkfgkoSMNU&feature=youtu.be

Mary, Mother of God “A Non-Violent Peacemaker” by Richard S. Vosko 01 January 2017

"1 January 2017 -- Mary Mother of God  — A Non-Violent Peacemaker Note: Today is is the 50th anniversary of the World Day of Peace, which was inspired by Pope John XXIII in his encyclical Pacem in Terris and established by Pope Paul VI in his letter Populorum Progressio in 1967. It is also the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of […]" Read more of this post

"Seed Hope. Flower Peace." by Janice Sevre-Duszynska ARCWP

Janice Sevre Duszynska ARCWP arrested at prayerful, non-violent witness for peace

Photo by Art Laffin

On December 27 and 28 I gathered with friends in the Atlantic and Southern Life Communities and other peacemakers for a retreat at St. Stephen’s church in Washington, D.C and a nonviolent witness at the Pentagon.  We were commemorating the Massacre of the Holy Innocents from the past and the present. We were also honoring Dan Berrigan, SJ, a friend and mentor to many believers of peace with justice, who died on April 30, 2016.

The afternoon began with a powerful scriptural reflection by Steve Baggarly of the Norfolk (VA) Catholic Worker Community.

Within the context of the of the birth narrative, he addressed the slaughter of the innocents by imperial Rome and Pax Romana. He contrasted the Kindom of God and the Gospel of Jesus with the behavior of the Roman Empire -- always expanding its military prowess and control much like the unrelenting violence of the US Empire today, which claims the globe as its battlefield, causing the death of the innocents. Steve’s talk prompted much discussion including how Dan Berrigan’s life continues to inspire resistance. Soon after, we read Sr. Anne Montgomery’s unpublished poem about the killing of holy innocents.

Much of the afternoon we spent talking about our action at the Pentagon during which we would use life-size cardboard figures of Dan and a banner displaying the statement of the Catonsville Nine: “The violence stops here, the death stops here, the suppression of truth stops here, this war stops here."

During the evening we celebrated a liturgy led by Nathan, an Episcopal priest with whom I talked, and Amanda who gave a captivating reflection on the resistance of the Hebrew midwives.  After the Eucharist, I was invited to read Dan’s piercing poem, “Prayer for the Morning Headlines.” It follows.

After supper we heard from several activists who had traveled to South Dakota to join in solidarity with the water protectors of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their prophetic campaign of nonviolent resistance.

As there was room at Dorothy Day CW, I spent the night there and was up a little after 5 a.m. for our 7 a.m. witness at the Pentagon. Sixteen of us walked up to the knoll area with our banners and cut-out of Dan. Eventually we made our way down to the sidewalk, blocking it in waves. I had never seen so few police officers at the Pentagon. We sang “Vine and Fig Tree” along with activists in the designated protest area. We were arrested, driven to a nearby police station and processed. Our court date is March 2, 2017 at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA.

We returned to St. Stephen’s for breakfast and a talent show we enjoyed given by the younger activists. On the ride back to Baltimore with Matt and Amy who use to live at the Jonah House, I got to sit between their infant daughter Penny and two-year-old son Eli who soon fell asleep.

Prayer For The Morning Headlines by Daniel Berrigan

Mercifully grant peace in our days.

Through your help may we be freed from present distress.

Have mercy on women and children homeless in foul weather, ranting like bees among gutted barns and stiles.

Have mercy on those (like us) clinging one to another under fire, terror on terror, grapes the grapeshot strikes.

Have mercy on the dead, befouled, trodden like snow in hedges and thickets.

Have mercy, dead man, whose grandiose gentle hope died on the wing, whose body stood like a tree between strike and fall, stood like a cripple on his wooden crutch.

We cry: Halt!

We cry: Password!

Dishonored heart, remember and remind, the open sesame:

From there to here, from innocence to us:

Hiroshima, Dresden, Guernica, Selma, Sharpeville, Coventry, Dachau.

Into our history, Pass!

Seed hope.

Flower peace.

Amen.

A Beautiful Homily on Peace by Marie Dennis: World Day of Peace Rooted in Justice and Non-Violence

http://catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/01012017

"Meet the captain of the realists on the Church and women" by John Allen, Bridget Mary's Response to Lucetta Scaraffia at the Vatican

Bridget Mary's Response:

Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP with microphone at Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Liturgy

Until women are priests- equals at the altar and in all decision-making roles in the church- the Roman Catholic all boys' club will dominate and oppress women in every aspect of ecclesial life.

Katy Zatsick ARCWP and Elena Garcia ARCWP preside at Liturgy for New Year at Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community

Lucretia makes important points about unshackling decision making at top levels from ordination. She gives the Vatican Curia a wake-up call on their treatment of women in the back rows from her experiences as a prominent leader. “But these synod fathers are in the habit of thinking that in the Church, what women do and think doesn’t count for anything...“It’s before the eyes of everybody,” she writes, “that there’s an enormous gap between the real role women have in the work of evangelization, and their almost total absence in decision-making moments.”

Her argument provides some positive improvements that would incorporate women's voices in ecclesial structures. 

• "Leadership by women in the departments of the Roman Curia within the Vatican."

While we need women in decision making in the Roman Curia, the hierarchy also needs a complete heart transplant that embraces women's full equality spiritually and theologically- which challenges sexism at its core by affirming women as equal images of the divine fully capable of making decisions guided by the indwelling Spirit, including about issues like birth control. Women's voices are the voice of God in our church that have not been heard for far too long. 

Until Catholics experience women preaching, presiding and celebrating sacraments in an inclusive, non-clerical model of priestly ministry, one with their sisters and brothers in faith communities where they live, we will remain unbalanced spiritually and a liturgically deprived Church. 

Like a bird who cannot fly on one wing, the church cannot function without half of its members being fully equals. God is calling women to serve as priests.  Women Priests are living their call today in the international Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement.  

The bottom line is that the full equality of women in the church and in the world is the will of God in our time and in all times.

Jesus called women and men to be disciples and equals. He provided an example of a companionship of empowerment. This is the vision we need to affirm for the 21st century!  Women do not need to wear clerical collars, (I don't have one!) but they do need to bring all their gifts to the table, including their call to serve as deacons, priests and bishops. 

Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

www.arcwp.org

The cover of "Dall'Ultimo Banco" by Lucetta Scaraffia. (Credit: Marsilio.)

No matter where one stands on women priests in the Catholic Church, the issue obviously isn't going anywhere, and real progress on empowering women thus must come elsewhere. Nobody makes tha

ROME - "Two months ago, an important Vatican milestone passed in basic silence. Oct. 15 marked the 40^th anniversary of Inter Insigniores, a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued under Pope Paul VI, which spelled out the reasons why women cannot be ordained as Catholic priests.

It came in response to the first ordinations of female clergy in the Anglican communion, and ever since it’s remained the basis for the Church’s position, although it was amplified and developed in St. Pope John Paul II’s 1994 document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in which the pontiff couldn’t have been more clear: “We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

For the last forty years, the debate on women in the Church has largely revolved around a “yes” or “no” to these documents, i.e., yes or no to women priests.

Setting aside the rights and wrongs, here’s the political lay of the land. There’s a sizable portion of the Church that considers the exclusion of women from the priesthood a vestige of patriarchy, a glass ceiling, and they’ll never be convinced the Church is serious about equality unless that ceiling is shattered.

There’s another camp, also not small, which believes the whole discussion about a “women’s problem” is a canard, something cultured despisers of the Church use as an ideological weapon, and that, in reality, Catholic women are just fine.

In the middle is probably the largest chunk of folks, who grasp that arguing over women priests right now is a waste of breath, but who nevertheless recognize that Catholicism’s rhetoric about the “feminine genius” is not always matched by making women part of the decision-making process, and who regret that often the system at the top remains a “boy’s club.”

That group wants to talk about what can be done in the here-and-now to promote leadership by women in ways that don’t always come down to pointless theoretical disputes over a question that’s already been answered.

The problem for that realist constituency is that they’ve never quite had an effective champion, a serious intellectual with feminist credentials who can’t be dismissed as a stooge, and who also has a gift for sound-bites and effective argument.

Not, that is, until the emergence of Lucetta Scaraffia as possibly one of the ten or so most interesting figures in the contemporary Catholic Church.

Lucetta Scaraffia. (Credit: L’Osservatore Romano.)

Scaraffia is a veteran journalist and historian in Italy, forming half of a power couple, since her husband is the well-known journalist and intellectual Ernesto Galli della Loggia. Among other things, since 2012 she’s directed a special edition on women published by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Earlier this year she published a book called Dall’Ultimo Banco: La Chiesa, Le Donne, e Il Sinodo, which translates as, “From the Last Row: The Church, Women and the Synod.” It offers her reflections on the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family, to which she was invited as an auditor, and the title refers to the fact that she was literally seated in the very last row of the synod hall.

(Alas, the book is not yet available in English, but for those who read Italian it can be found on Amazon in Kindle format.)

In some ways, it’s hard to believe Scaraffia is kind-of, sort-of on the Vatican’s payroll, because she’s absolutely scathing in her indictment of the hierarchy’s failure to take women seriously.

Here’s a typical passage: “It’s before the eyes of everybody,” she writes, “that there’s an enormous gap between the real role women have in the work of evangelization, and their almost total absence in decision-making moments.”

Scaraffia is also tough on the Synod of Bishops, accusing prelates of tossing around abstract concepts developed in largely ecclesiastical contexts, without any real sense of history or of the lived realities of the family in the early 21^st century.

Among other things, she recounts a conversation with a missionary nun with long experience in northern Africa during the synod, after several speakers had extolled Natural Family Planning. The nun, she said, explained that many African women can’t convince their husbands to have sex only during their infertile periods, and so for them the prohibition of the pill is a very practical burden.

“Yet the synod fathers didn’t seem interested in distinguishing situations, reducing everything to a merely theological problem,” she says. “It’s not their skin, not their bodies.”

She also scoffed at some of the defenses of the traditional family offered by prelates from the Middle East and Africa.

“In reality, these traditional families often exercise an oppressive power over women, and perhaps for that reason it’s not really a good idea anymore to propose them as a model,” she writes. “But these synod fathers are in the habit of thinking that in the Church, what women do and think doesn’t count for anything.”

Yet Scaraffia is no typical Catholic feminist, at least of the progressive sort. She strongly defends the Church’s basic position on artificial birth control, its stance on abortion, and on many of the other fronts of the sexual revolution.

She also regards the debate over women priests as a distraction, insisting, “The emancipation of women in the Church can, indeed must, be realized without passing through the priesthood.”

As Scaraffia sees it, Christianity actually has been history’s great motor force for the liberation of women.

In the early Church, she notes, many of the most important converts were wealthy widows who saw in Christianity a route to liberation, and the Church’s early patrimony was largely based on their property. The Christian understanding of marriage instilled a concept of equality between the partners, and over the centuries, women have played key leadership roles - Hildegard of Bingen preached in the Cologne cathedral, she notes, and St. Catherine of Sienna spoke at a synod where she was taken seriously indeed.

Putting on her historian’s hat, Scaraffia claims that writing a history of women actually is only possible “within the lone institution that took them seriously, that is, the Church. With abbesses, educated nuns and writers, the founders of orders and the saints, we have many sources that simply don’t exist for women in the secular world.”

All that began to change, Scaraffia says, only in the 19^th and 20^thcenturies, when the press for women’s liberation got intertwined with the drive for sexual emancipation, which meant the Church and the leading women thinkers of the day found themselves progressively estranged.

Yet for 20th century examples of overcoming that estrangement, Scaraffia cites St. Edith Stein; Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement; and Adrienne von Speyr, the longtime theological collaborator of Hans urs von Balthasar.

So what would power without priesthood look like today? Almost offhand, Scaraffia cites several possibilities.

• Participation by women, both religious and ordinary laity, in the General Congregation meetings that precede the election of a pope.
• Participation by women, again both religious and lay, in meetings of bishops’ conferences around the world.
• Leadership by women in the departments of the Roman Curia within the Vatican.
• More regular consultation by the Vatican of the International Union of Superiors General, the umbrella group for leaders of women’s religious orders. Although its headquarters is just a stone’s throw from the Vatican, Scaraffia notes with evident sarcasm that it’s a “merely topographical closeness,” and that in fact the “contacts between the Holy See and the association are practically null.”

Though she doesn’t mention it in the book, Scaraffia floated another intriguing idea some time back: The pope could create a council of lay advisers composed of both men and women, analogous to his “C9” council of cardinal advisers, to ensure that the voices of laity and women are regularly part of his deliberations.

None of these possibilities have anything to do with priestly ordination. The fact that none of them has been taken up in a serious way, therefore, may speak more to ecclesiastical sociology and psychology than any limits imposed by Catholic doctrine.

The bottom line is this: Whatever one thinks of women priests, the status quo isn’t changing, a point Pope Francis has made repeatedly. If there is to be progress, it thus has to come elsewhere.

Right now, nobody’s showing what forward movement might look like better than Lucetta Scaraffia - who is herself, by the way, living proof that you don’t need a Roman collar to matter in Roman Catholicism."