PRESS RELEASE: August 4, 2016
From the
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP)www.arcwp.org
Contact:
Janice Sevre-Duszynska, D.Min. media,
and
Bishop Bridget Mary
Meehan, sofiabmm@aol.com,
(Contact Bridget Mary by email as she is in Ireland and will celebrate Eucharist in Dublin on Aug. 7th at Rialto Community Center.The liturgy will be at 10am on Sunday in the Rialto Community Centre, 468 South Circular Road, Dublin 8. )
On May 31st, women priests
Christina Moreira of Spain and Janice Sevre-Duszynska from the U.S. met with a
Vatican official at the Curia who promised to give Pope Francis our
international women priest petition to lift our excommunications, punishments
against our supporters and begin a dialogue with women priests.
A major focus of their discussion was the
history of women’s leadership in Early Christianity. They were following up on
Francis’s May 12 “yes” to women
religious who asked for a commission to study women deacons.
True to his word, Pope Francis has appointed a
gender-balanced commission of six women and six men to begin the study. The
gender balance and makeup of this Commission is a positive first step in
the study of female deacons in the Roman Catholic Church.
“It is our hope that this study could lead to
a deeper appreciation of our earlier tradition of women deacons, priests and
bishops in leadership roles in the church, and to the full equality of women as
priests, bishops, and decision makers in a more inclusive, egalitarian church,”
said Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop in ARCWP.
Phyllis Zagano, who was appointed to the
Pope's Commission. argues: "There is overwhelming historical evidence that
women were ordained deacons by bishops intending to perform a sacrament. If
women were sacramentally ordained deacons and the diaconate shares in the
sacerdotal priesthood … then women have already shared in the sacerdotal
priesthood,” Zagano wrote for America magazine in 2013. (2003)
“The humanity of Christ overcomes the
limitations of gender, and no church document argues an ontological distinction
among humans except documents that address the question of ordination,” she
continued. “This view is not likely to dampen growing worldwide enthusiasm for
women deacons,” Zagano said.
Once the Commission that Pope Francis called
for delves into the scholarship, they will have a lot to share.
First, according to the 1976 Pontifical
Biblical Commission's Report, the Vatican's own scholarship, there is nothing
in scripture that supports a ban on women's ordination...."It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will
permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the
possible accession of women to the presbyterate."
See outstanding scholarship cited below
on the comprehensive website quoted below: http://www.womenpriests.org/pordain.asp
“Women deacons have been documented
extensively for the first nine centuries especially in the Eastern part of the
Church.” See Romans 16: Paul praises Deacon Phoebe and commends her leadership
in the local church.
"Women deacons assisted in the baptism of women which required anointing and
immersion of the whole body.
We know the exact ordination rites that were used. They
involve the imposition of hands by the bishop, the invocation of the Holy
Spirit to impart the diaconate and the imposition of the
diaconate stole.
International
Church Councils, such as Chalcedon, Trullo and
Nicaea II endorsed the ordination of women deacons.”
Three, there is no evidence whatsoever, that ordination was
required to preside at house church Eucharistic celebrations in early
Christianity.
Four, the history of ordination evolved and was understood
differently in the first centuries of the church's history than in medieval and
contemporary times. See Gary Macy, The Hidden History of Women's Ordination.
So our advice to the Vatican Commission is check out the
Pontifical Biblical Commission's report in 1976, visit the women priests
website quoted above that cites years worth of scholarship by John Wijngaards,
and read: No Women in Holy Order? The Ancient Women Deacons by John Wingaards,
Canterbury Press, 2002.
No doubt the hard liners in the Vatican Curia
are irritated by opening up this topic for study. They fear that it
could lead to women priests!
Our Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement has
been ordaining women deacons, priests and bishops to serve in grassroots,
inclusive faith communities, thus renewing the church on the margins, one
renewed community at a time.
Our international movement is calling on Pope
Francis to dialogue with us, lift excommunications, and honor primacy of
conscience. We are over 225 members on 5 continents, in 13 countries, serving
81 faith communities in 34 states in the United States.
The Association of Roman Catholic Women
Priests is working to transform the clerical, dominator approach of the
institutional church to a community of equals model where all are welcome to
celebrate sacraments at the Banquet of God’s infinite love. See our vision,
mission, values statement on our website: www.arcwp.org
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