WOMEN PRIESTS' MOVEMENT CELEBRATES TENTH ANNIVERSARY (Roman Catholic Women Priests International) by Bishop Ida Raming

The first public ordination of Roman Catholic women took place ten years ago,

on June 29th 2002. From this small beginning, when only seven women were

ordained as priests, a much larger international movement has developed and

continues to grow. At present there are about 130 members (which includes the candidates) in various countries. Women priests minister to people in small house churches, in larger communities, in hospitals and prisons and also to the homeless. In this way they bring to life in the Spirit of Jesus, an alternative women-friendly tradition within the fozzilized Roman Catholic Church.

Historical background:

In the face of growing international support for women's ordination since Vatican II,

the church leadership published, as early as 1977, a declaration against the admission of women to priesthood. This in spite of the fact that the Papal Biblical Commission, in1976, had come to the conclusion that no grounds can be found in the NewTestament for excluding women from priestly ordination. Nevertheless, Pope John

Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), declared definitively

that women are, in fact, excluded from priesthood.

The rejection of women's ordination by the Vatican is clearly based on antifeminist,

theologically unfounded arguments. In answer to this we are seeing an increasing

wave of resistance among Catholic women and within church reform movements,

as they demand equal rights for women and justice within the Roman Catholic

Church.

Ida Raming, Dr. theol.

(Representative of the German Section of the international RCWP Movement)
http://www.rcwp.de/