Women Priests 'Delighted' by Google,Vatican Catacombs Tour by Megan Fincher National Catholic Reporter/Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, Responds

"Thanks to collaboration between Google Street View and the Vatican, Rome's catacombs are now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. However, the move has created controversy for what some say the catacombs hold.
http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/women-priests-delighted-google-vatican-catacombs-tour

..."A group of Catholics say people will certainly know more after taking the Google catacomb tour: They say the catacombs hold evidence of ancient women priests.

CNS/Max Rossi

"We are delighted that the Vatican has restored these frescoes of women priests celebrating Eucharist in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla's in Rome," Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop ordained through the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

..."Now that anyone can tour the catacombs and see these frescoes via Google, members of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests say they have let the media know they have written about and believe that two frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla provide evidence of an ancient tradition of women deacons, priests and even bishops.

Meehan wrote an article in 2008, "There Have Always Been Women Priests," for the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. In the article, Meehan describes ancient frescoes, including two in the Catacombs of Priscilla, portraying what she says are women in liturgical roles and vestments. 

The first Catacombs of Priscilla fresco Meehan mentions "depicts a woman deacon in the center vested in a dalmatic, her arms raised in the orans position for public worship."

In the same painting, Meehan says there is also "a woman being ordained a priest by a bishop seated in a chair. She is vested in an alb, chasuble, and amice, and holding a gospel scroll."

The third woman in the painting "is wearing the same robe as the bishop on the left and is sitting in the same type of chair," Meehan wrote.

In her article, Meehan also quotes archeologist and theologian Dorothy Irvin, who said she found another fresco in the Catacombs of Priscilla of women "conducting a Eucharistic banquet."

"This is a fairy tale, a legend," Fabrizio Bisconti, superintendent of religious heritage archeological sites owned by the Vatican, told Reuters. He said any talk of women in liturgical roles was "sensationalist and absolutely not reliable."

The Associated Press, however, wrote Tuesday that one of the Priscilla frescoes "features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist," and the other "features a woman, dressed in a dalmatic -- a cassock-like robe -- with her hands up in the position used by priests for public worship..."

[Megan Fincher is a Bertelsen NCR intern. Her email address is mfincher@ncronline.org.]

Bridget Mary's Response;

I agree that the priesthood in the second century was not the same as the priesthood today. In Romans 16, St. Paul praises Deacon Phoebe and other women leaders of house churches.

Paul used "diakonos", deacon to describe Phoebe and Timothy. He also commended Phoebe as a overseer of the church and benefactor who had aided Paul.  In other words, Paul commended Phoebe as a major leader of a community equal to and independent of Paul. 

Scholars believe that  women leaders presided at the Eucharist in these communities and played a prominent role in the life and growth of the community. 

So, I would argue that the bishop in this frescoe is bestowing Orders and/or consecrating this woman for leadership in the church.  He is laying hands on her and she is dressed in liturgical attire. 

We know that the earliest understanding of ordination was a function in service of the community, and different groups like widows and later abbesses received Holy Orders. For the first twelve hundred years, there is no doubt, as historian Gary Macy, concludes that women were ordained to serve their local communities. Simply put, Holy Orders as we know it today developed over time.

 Thus, in the early Christianity there is no doubt that women were ordained, but that ordination had a different meaning than modern day Catholicism.  

There is no evidence that an ordained priest was required to preside at these early church Eucharistic liturgies. Scholars like Gary Wills in Why Priesthood, A Failed Tradition reminds us that there is no evidence that the apostles were ordained or that they ordained priests or bishops.  

 The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests are following the example of Jesus who called both women and men as disciples and treated them as equals. We are  faithfully reclaiming the early tradition of women and men celebrating Eucharist as they did in the house churches praised by St. Paul in Romans 16.  Ordination today is a justice issue for women in the Roman Catholic Church. We are ordaining women in the same way as men so that justice and equality will become a reality in our church today. Our vision is to promote justice for all, justice for the poor and marginalized, justice for women, and justice for women in an inclusive, egalitarian church rooted in Jesus's vision and the early church's example--- where everybody is welcome at the Eucaristic Banquet. 

Yes, we are delighted that the Vatican has made the connection of women's sacramental ministries in the early church. Women priests honor the holy women depicted in the catacombs as role models, foremothers in the faith.  As an international movement we are working to renew the church we love into a more open, inclusive, community where all are welcome to receive sacraments, not only those who obey the rules. The full equalityof women in the voice of God in our time, and it is now a reality!  Bridget Mary Meehan, Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, 

 www.arcwp.org