"Womenpriests Ordain First Orinda Woman Catholic Priest,"Joanna Truelson RCWP. Article by by Sora O'Doherty

http://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1009/Womenpriests-Ordain-First-Orinda-Woman-Catholic-Priest.html

Joanna Truelson Photo Sora O'Doherty

"Joanna Truelson took a big step in her spirituality last  when the Orinda resident was ordained a Roman Catholic  womanpriest at a ceremony at the Orinda Community  Church June 25.  The ordination, the first of its type in Orinda, was under  the auspices of Roman Catholic Womenpriests,  an organization founded in 2002 in Germany.  The officiant was womanbishop Olivia Doko of  San Luis Obispo, who was ordained a womanpriest  in 2006 and a womanbishop in 2010.  During the ordination Bishop Doko stated,  "We are not restricted by the past."  The Roman Catholic Womenpriests describes itself as a  renewal movement within the Catholic church  that began in Germany with the ordination of  seven women on the Danube River in 2002.  After the ordination of the first priests,  women have also been ordained womenbishops so that,  according to the Roman Catholic Womenpriests,  they continue to ordain priests in the Apostolic succession.  Roman Catholic Womenpriests claims that the  ordinations they perform are "valid but illicit,"  as they are in violation of Canon Law.  But they believe that they are in conformance  with Apostolic Succession. .. ..." According to the Center for Applied Research  in the Apostolate, which collects statistics on Catholicism  in the United States, in 2015 there were 37,578 Catholic  priests in the U.S. for a total Catholic population of  68.1 million.  There were 3,533 parishes that had no resident pastor and  the number of active diocesan priests per parish has been  steadily declining from two in 1965 to one in 2015.  Truelson was raised in New York and studied nursing at  Belle-view Hospital. After moving to California,  she obtaining a BSN degree, and a master's from the  University of California San Francisco, with a major in  Mental Health Nursing Administration.  She worked as a medical surgical pediatric coordinator  for 24 years. Following a year in which her father died and  she got divorced, with two young children, age two and five,  she changed her profession to realtor,  which allowed her to spend more time with her children.  Truelson found a program called "A Course in Miracles."  First she took the course; now she acts as a facilitator.  She followed Matthew Fox from Holy Names College  to his own University of Creation Spirituality,  and in 2000 obtained the degree of Doctor of Ministry... Truelson later attended the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley,  and was ordained an Interfaith Minister, also in the year 2000... Now Truelson feels that she has found her home in the RCWP. Truelson has been a Womenpriest deacon, and is a  founding member of Namaste Catholic Community in Orinda,  which meets for Mass on the second and forth  Saturdays of each month at the Orinda Community..."