"A New Pentecost" by Elsie Hainz McGrath, RCWP

Ree Hudson, Bishop Patricia Fresen, Elsie Hainz McGrath
(left to right on ordination day in St. Louis Elsie and Ree are co-pastors of St. Therese of Divine Peace in St. Louis, Missouri)

A New Pentecost

As we move into that time we call “Ordinary,” many of our Christian sisters and brothers begin to celebrate the season they call “Pentecost.” Truly, this is the Season of Pentecost – every year a new Pentecost, a new opportunity to birth a new church into being. And this year we have been given a new impetus, because that New Church, which birth we are witnesses to and participants in, has experienced quantum leaps of growth throughout the 2010 Season of Easter. The story is universal – interreligious and worldwide. For clarity and brevity, however, we will focus only on one piece of it: the piece we call Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP).

The women who are priests, validly ordained in the apostolic line and insistent upon being identified as Roman Catholic because our mission is renewal and reform – which can only happen from within – officially began on the Danube River on June 29 of 2002. Seven women answered the call to step out in faith and accept ordination. These “Danube Seven” garnered worldwide headlines, and the full attention of Rome. They were excommunicated, and it was thought by the hierarchy that the “woman problem” was thus resolved.

It wasn’t. The birthing of a new church had begun.

There were “tipping points,” as Ree calls them, along the way. The first, following that 2002 phenomenon, was the ordinations on the Three Rivers outside of Pittsburgh – the first RCWP ordinations to be held within the boundaries of the USA. Of epic proportions, they happened on July 31 of 2006. At the invitation of Bishop Patricia Fresen – who had welcomed us into the program of formation, continued to mentor us throughout the process, and was our ordaining bishop – Ree and I were there, witnessing history such as no one had ever before witnessed.

On November 11 of 2007, the St. Louis ordinations in the Jewish Central Reform Congregation grabbed the attention of the world and the first official excommunications since the Danube Seven. It was the second “tipping point.” Sea changes occurred within the religious communities of St. Louis as a direct result of those ordinations. The tides were turning. And on December 19 of 2007, Rome signed a declaration of universal automatic excommunication, in perpetuity, for women ordained as Roman Catholic priests. The “general decree” was made public five months later.

The third “tipping point” was an ordination in Lexington, Kentucky on August 9 of 2008. For the first time – and to date the only time – an active and in-good-standing male Roman Catholic priest openly celebrated at a Roman Catholic woman’s ordination. Rev. Roy Bourgeois preached at the services, and has been preaching ever since in support of women priests. And, like all of us, he refuses to accept the excommunication that Rome says he has automatically incurred.

Taking our cue from what we have learned as “good” Catholics, we could say that RCWP has attained, in its seventh year, the “age of reason.” And that the growing discontent among the world’s Catholics is leading to a growing age of reason, a growing age of questioning, and of demands for reasoned and reasonable answers. The tidal waves are becoming tsunamic.

And now, a little less than eight years after the Danube Seven began this birthing process, RCWP adds a new page to its history – a necrology page.

The fourth “tipping point”: the passing into new life of Rev. Mary Styne on the eve of the Ascension – May 12 – with her funeral celebration on Ascension Sunday; and the passing into new life of Rev. Janine Denomme on the day after Mary’s celebration – May 17 – with her funeral celebration on the eve of Pentecost. In the light of their resurrection, these beloved sisters shine on our churches and light our way forward.

On May 16, while we in St. Louis celebrated a bodily Jesus ascending into a space called heaven, our sister Mary was being celebrated for entering into new life at her funeral Mass in Wisconsin. Exactly nine months earlier, on August 16 of 2009, Mary was ordained. Her ordained ministry was brief; her priestly ministry encompassed the whole of her 70 years of earthly life.

Janine was ordained on April 10 of this year, less than two months after her 45^th birthday. A priest forever, and wise beyond her years, when her brother asked her what she knew for sure, Janine’s response was, “I know that I am loved.” As we celebrated Janine’s holy life, witnesses attested to her holy presence in those last days. It was said that she became Light. As a Methodist church was filled to overflowing, and a Catholic funeral included the Jewish Kaddish, it was said that we were truly witnessing the birth of a new church.

We have come of age. The HOLY grace of Pentecost lives within us. We believe.

Rev. Elsie Hainz McGrath, RCWP

29 May 2010