Women Priests Leading Church: Moving from a Clerical Model to a People Empowered, Inclusive Community of Faith

Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community in Sarasota, Florida
Liturgy at 4 PM on Sat. www.marymotherofjesus.org

As we reflect on our movement as a bridge between the church as it has evolved today ,and the discipleship of equals community of faith model in early church. We are making a way by ordaining women as an issue of justice and then offering a renewed model, similar to the early house church model!

Today the institutional church has an ordained priesthood that is both clerical and hierarchical , women priests are renewing the church by birthing a community of equals, inclusive, empowered model. God is not in a box controlled by anyone. The Spirit is free and is moving within everyone!

We are helping the church move from a clerical model of priesthood to a people powered community of faith.

In summary:

The international  Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement is a renewal, justice movement within the Catholic Church.

We are serving inclusive Catholic communities where all are welcome to receive sacraments.

Our women priests' initiative is a non-clerical movement that offers the church an egalitarian, partnership with the community of the baptized. 
We have come full circle back to where we started in the days of early Christianity. www.arcwp.org

(Our approach reflects the early church’s practice of the community as the celebrator of the meal in memory of Jesus, Eucharist. In our inclusive liturgies, for example, the people pray the Epiclesis and Eucharistc Prayer, dialogue homilies are often used.  We have come full circle.

From What Jesus Meant by  scholar Gary Wills:

"Jesus disapproved of the sacrificial system and confronted the religious leaders, the priests . In the Gospels the priests are the most active plotters to kill Jesus. There were no priests among Jesus’ followers."
 Jesus did not ordain anyone.

(The Roman  Catholic Church claims that the apostles became priests at Last Supper and that Peter was the first Pope! There is no scripture basis for this teaching.)

The early church functioned without priests. In addition, Gary Wills writes,
“...nowhere  is it indicated that there was an official presider at the Christian meal (agape)much less that consecrating the bread and wine was a task delegated to persons of a certain rank. When the term priesthood finally occurs in the Pseudo Petrine letters it refers to the whole Christian community. (1 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 2:9 Peter refers to himself as a  “fellow elder” among the other elders. ) (What Jesus Meant, pp 69-70