Georgia Walker ARCWP shares the reasons she will be ordained a Jan. 3rd, 2015 in Kansas City, Missouri with Fr. Rowe, Vicar General of Diocese of KC. (email)
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| Deacon Georgia Walker at a Peace and Justice Witness Event |
December 23, 2014
Re:
Your phone call to me on December 11,
2014
Dear Fr. Rowe,
I have tried to reach you at your office to see
if I could come in to speak with you about your phone call to me regarding
ordination to the priesthood.
Perhaps because of the holidays, I have been
unable to reach you. So I am sending this message to you by email prior to a story appearing in the Kansas City Star about the ordination of
women.
First, I want to thank you for contacting me by
telephone to give me a warning about the gravity of my plans to be ordained to
the priesthood. It was very considerate of you to inform me of the potential
consequences of my course of action.
I appreciate it and I have carefully
considered what you had to say.
I have taken this to prayer over the last ten
days and have consulted with many other priests in the Association of Roman
Catholic Women Priests and discerned with several close spiritual
advisors. As
a result of that discernment, I have decided to continue with my plans to be
ordained on January 3rd.
Since I have been unable to reach you to obtain
a possible appointment and the short time frame, I have decided to send you a
brief overview of my position on this subject of ordination (see attached
note). Of
course, many of the ideas which I have set to paper are thoughts and opinions
which are shared by others in my Association and/or other
writers.
If you have any questions of me after you have read
my paper, please contact me at 816.572-3453 or by email at gkwalker@juno.com
Sincerely,
Georgia K. Walker
1 1. What
is the reason that women are seeking ordination despite the threat of
excommunication?
The Spirit’s call is
strong and we are responding, “Yes.”
Ours is a prophetic
witness for justice. God is a God of justice.
We are choosing not to
continue in our own oppression by denying our call.
Joan of Arc was declared
a heretic, burned at the stake, and later declared a saint by the church. Pope
Benedict canonized two formerly excommunicated nuns, Mother Theodore Guerin
from the United States and Mother Mary MacKillop from Australia. Therefore, you
could say excommunication has become a new fast track to canonization!
The treatment of women
in the Roman Catholic Church directly influences the treatment of women
everywhere. By answering God’s call to ordination even when the Church has a
law against women being ordained, we are empowering women everywhere to follow
their conscience by speaking truth to power and acting upon it.
We love the church, we
are dedicated to serving the people of God, and we preside at sacraments
within inclusive communities.
Jesus never ordained
anyone but did travel with men and women who listened carefully to his
life-giving message. These men and women went to cities, towns and villages to
bring the Gospel message to all who would hear it, and the story continues to
the present day. We are from the line of Gospel bearers, and as
ordained women we are part of a long history of men and women who were ordained
to ministry in the early Church. We encourage our church leaders to
read the theologians of the 21st Century and open
the door to dialogue for a new model of church.
As we looked back on our
lives, this step into ordained priesthood was our response to the Lover God who
has been beckoning us into ever and deeper relationship.
When we realized that
some close friends were recognizing our priestly vocation, we also realized
that this woman priest movement at this particular point in history was carved
out especially for us. The calling for us was twofold: the priestly part and
the justice part.
We do not accept the
legitimacy of excommunication of women priests. God does not
practice the art of patriarchy.
Why would the hierarchy
excommunicate priests who are following their call from God to priesthood,
while the hierarchy does not excommunicate bishops who protect pedophile
priests or priests who are pedophiles?
2. What would the benefits to the Church (people of God) be if the
hierarchy accepted women’s ordination?
We would bring forth and
take forward our model of priesthood: non-clerical, inclusive communities where
all will be welcome and all will be co-equal in their participation in liturgy,
service and governance.
Inclusive liturgies with
feminine as well as masculine images of God (who is beyond gender) would
support girls’ and women’s images of themselves as being created in God’s
image, thus strengthening their psyches and souls. The benefits to men’s souls
and psyches would be that they would be more in touch with their own feminine and
be inclined to be more cooperative and less inclined to hubris, competition and
violence.
Women at the table
imaging the imago dei in our sacred bodies would strengthen
women’s images of themselves as coming from the Divine and perhaps lessen
femicide and the murder and violence toward girls and women. Perhaps seeing
women at the table would help men to reinforce their respect for women and our
sacred bodies.
The people of God need
to hear the Gospels interpreted from our (women’s) living and dying. The Gospels are grounded in social justice.
Men and other women need to hear our stories of how justice-making heals and
how injustice causes suffering. Women’s voices need to be heard in
our families, local communities and our world community.
We as women priests want
to bring new life into a dying Church by making it a place where
diversity is welcome and all people have an equal voice.
There is a connection
between the oppression of women in religion and violence done to women (and
their children of all ages) in the world. We must see the connections among
sexism, racism, militarism, nationalism and capitalism.
God does not practice
patriarchy. Jesus teaches us liberation from the domination/subordination
pattern in any relationship. We are to empower each other in healthy
relationships.
The Church could relieve
male priests from their service overload to parishioners so they would not have
to serve multiple parishes simultaneously.
Fewer local parishes
would have to close when female priests and deacons could share the service.
Sacraments could be made
available to more people on a more regular basis in prisons, hospitals, nursing
homes and other group living situations.
Maybe many of the 33
million ex-Catholics in the United States would return to a more inclusive and
co-equal Church that empowers and liberates the people of God.
It is time to open all
the windows!
3. What is it about the
hierarchy (Church) that upsets women?
Women have been caring
for people in their families, in society and in their parish without due
equality in power (say-so) and wages.
We are saddened and
scandalized by doctrines and teachings that oppress, exclude and diminish the
lives of anyone. We are ashamed of a Church that is unwelcoming to women, LGBTQ,
divorced or anyone else who is living life in dignity and love. We do not find
Jesus in such exclusions.
When the priesthood of
women is rejected, the Church suggests that our God does not want what we are
longing to give, thereby warping the image of God for all who accept that
teaching, in a particularly pernicious way.
We cannot believe that
it is women priests who must be reconciled to the Church, rather it is hierarchs
who need to be reconciled to the people of God (the Church).
We
are embarrassed by collectivities of men who meet behind closed doors and
develop positions and edicts that have devastating effects on the lives of
women, children and families without having women present to represent their
experience.
We as women priests want
to bring new life into a dying Church by making it a place where diversity is
welcome and all people have an equal voice.
