Women’s Interfaith Network Fall Program in Sarasota Flordia : Speaker: Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, "Holy Shakeup- A Woman's Journey to Equality in Her Church"

Today, I had the honor of  being the Speaker for the Fall Program 2024 of the Women's Interfaith Network,  a lively gathering of women from different religious beliefs and traditions in the Sarasota area.  I shared stories based on our October 17 th Ordination on the Tiber in Rome and answered many questions about our international Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement. 

Prepared text: 

On Thursday, October 17, 2024, the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests ordained six 4 women and 2 transgender persons on the Tiber as a prophetic witness that gender equality in ordained ministries is a reality now. Our movement, which I call a holy shakeup, is a spiritual revolution that is bringing new life and inclusivity to the Roman Catholic Church was covered by international media from France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and the United States. 

So, it should come as no surprise that Mary Theresa Streck and I were stopped by the Roman Police and Vatican guards as we entered St. Peter’s Square for the Canonization Mass of eleven martyrs on the following Sunday.  A security guard approached me and said: Are you Bridget Mary Meehan? Suddenly, we were surrounded by several guards with badges, some of whom, were in uniforms. They asked for our passports and examined our bags.  WE noticed that no one else was detained. They did not ask us any questions and assured us sometimes they do enhanced checks. I noticed that one official in the group was speaking to someone on the telephone. I wondered who he was speaking to and what was being said!.  Finally, after about 25 minutes, one of the security guards escorted us to our seats. Obviously, someone approved of our attendance and the canonization liturgy was beautiful. In the end, we enjoyed seeing Pope Francis riding around the Square in his pope mobile!

On Friday, we gathered at the Jesuit center in Rome for a book signing of Rev. Jim Martin’s new book, Lazarus, Come Forth. I asked Fr. Jim if he would share our request for a conversation in the Spirit with Pope Francis in the coming Jubilee Year. He assured me that he would do so and asked that I send a formal request directly to the Pope which we did. 

While Pope Francis is not comfortable ordaining women as deacons, the Synod on Synodality voted by a two-thirds majority to keep the ordination of women deacons on the table for ongoing discernment. In their words: “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue.”

The synod calls for greater involvement of women in the church, in decision-making. “There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church,” …what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”

And this is where I stand in faith, hope and love!

 Indeed, nothing will stop the global movement toward gender equity- including  our movement for gender equality in ordained ministries. We are walking in the footsteps of Rabbi Jesus who invited everyone to an open table of outpouring of love for all people and all creation.

I believe that what has been missing in the discernment process on women deacons is a conversation in the Spirit with Roman Catholic Women Priests on our 22 years of ministerial experience in fostering a church in which all are welcome to receive and celebrate sacraments including the divorced and remarried and LGBTQ+.  We have grown from 7 to over 270  ordained ministers  who are serving people-empowered, non-clerical sacramental communities  of equals in 14 countries around the world.

Our holy shakeup is a spiritual revolution, that is building builds bridges of compassion and reconciliation by making connections between hurting hearts and broken spirits at the disengaged edges of Catholicism to create what Pope Francis calls a “church for everyone.”

 We are prophets of the future engaged in the work of justice, inclusivity  equality, and evolutionary openness to growth. 

 

 

Moving Forward after our election

 Let us plunge into infinite love , let it embrace ever cell of our bodies and let us hold one another in the embrace of love and be part of the world’s healing- one thought and one word at a time!

“Enormous frustration” and protests from the German Church over a new postponement of the female diaconate And the Pope said that the question "is not yet ripe" for debate. "

 https://www.clarin.com/mundo/enorme-frustracion-protestas-iglesia-alemana-nueva-postergacion-diaconado-femenino_0_rb0b4WNKFY.html

“The president of the German bishops, Monsignor Baetzing, acknowledged the “enormous frustration” caused by the umpteenth postponement of the issue of the diaconate.”

Bridget Mary Meehan, a US "bishop" in full rebellion against Pope Francis. Photo: Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP Image: 1/2

" The Synod of Bishops concluded a few days ago without any news on the subject.And the Pope said that the question "is not yet ripe" for debate. German women are at the forefront of the protests and are deeply disappointed."

"A significant proportion of women, more than half of the 1.4 billion Catholics, are protesting. The Synod of Synods of Bishops ended two weeks ago after meeting in two phases in 2023 and 2024, without having taken a substantive decision on the question of the female diaconate , which has been postponed to a commission of ten that will present its conclusions to the Pope in June 2025 and will deal with other difficult issues that explain the decision to postpone them beyond the Synod.

German women are at the forefront of the protests and are very disappointed. Claudia Lucking-Michel, vice-president of the Committee of German Catholics, said: “My capacity for suffering has come to an end. Women are valued for their capacity for suffering and this makes me very nervous.”

“Should we be happy that they have not yet banned the female diaconate and have left the door open for us? But how long do they think women can wait for something to be done and say something like: ‘Oh yes, now you can become a deaconess’?”

A significant proportion of women, more than half of the 1.4 billion Catholics, are protesting. The Synod of Synods of Bishops ended two weeks ago after meeting in two phases in 2023 and 2024, without having taken a substantive decision on the question of the female diaconate , which has been postponed to a commission of ten that will present its conclusions to the Pope in June 2025 and will deal with other difficult issues that explain the decision to postpone them beyond the Synod.

German women are at the forefront of the protests and are very disappointed. Claudia Lucking-Michel, vice-president of the Committee of German Catholics, said: “My capacity for suffering has come to an end. Women are valued for their capacity for suffering and this makes me very nervous.”

“Should we be happy that they have not yet banned the female diaconate and have left the door open for us? But how long do they think women can wait for something to be done and say something like: ‘Oh yes, now you can become a deaconess’?”

The president of the German bishops wrote a first letter to Fernández accompanying the document of the Synod of German bishops with the evolution of the issue of women.

The second letter responded to the position that Cardinal Fernández took when, in the final phase of the Synod, he announced that the Pope considered that the issue of the female diaconate “was not yet mature.”

"I see this issue in a very different light," wrote the president of the German bishops.

Since Francis had firmly blocked proposals to allow women to become priests, the diaconate seemed like a way out. In the early days of Christianity, there were deaconesses , women who helped with mass, could perform births and weddings, but could not celebrate mass. They were not priests, but they had climbed a step with the diaconate, which declined over the centuries and became extinct in the 12th century.

The president of the German bishops, Monsignor Baetzing, acknowledged the “enormous frustration” caused by the umpteenth postponement of the issue of the diaconate.

Conservative Cardinal Walter Kasper sees ordination of women deacons as possible and sensible Portaluz November 2, 2024

 https://portaluz.org/fe-y-cultura/413767057/El-conservador-cardenal-Walter-Kasper-considera-posible-y-sensata-la-ordenacion-de-mujeres-diaconos.html

Can women become deacons? The Synod on Synodality marked the question as open, subject to review by the Pope.

Deacon Loan Roacher ordained on Tiber on October 17  2024

Newly ordained ARCWP deacons:
Loan Rocher , from Spain : Maria Teresa Ribeiro Rosa, and 
Txus Garcia Pascual  

“Cardinal Walter Kasper considers the ordination of women as deacons to be theologically possible and pastorally significant. In an interview with the magazine "Communio", the former Vatican official responsible for ecumenism said that he had struggled for some time looking for the answer to this question. "Each local church would be free to decide whether or not to make use of this possibility," Kasper continued. The cardinal stressed that he was talking about permanent deaconesses, not the ordination of deaconesses as a transitional stage to priestly ordination.

According to Kasper, the argument in favour of ordaining women as deacons is that both Western and Eastern churches were familiar with this ministry in the early centuries. Nor can it be said that the ordination of deaconesses was a sacrament at that time, as these theological concepts were only developed later. It would be inappropriate to view ordinations of that time merely as symbolic blessings: "The fact that, as far as I know, the forms of ordination for deacons and deaconesses were the same also speaks against this."

The unity of the sacrament of ordination is not an argument

Kasper was also not convinced by the argument that women cannot be ordained as deacons because the ordinations of deacon, priest and bishop are a sacrament inseparable from the "ordo." Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013) made it clear that deacons, unlike priests and bishops, do not represent Jesus Christ as head of the Church. On the other hand, the ordination of bishops was not definitively recognised as a sacrament until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). "Therefore, there have been and are not insignificant differences within the single sacrament of the ordo, as well as historical developments that have been oriented towards pastoral needs," Kasper stressed. 

The question of whether women can be ordained as deacons has been a contentious issue within the Catholic Church for years. Various commissions set up by the Popes have already dealt with the issue without reaching a clear conclusion. A decision by Pope Francis is also pending. In 1994, Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) merely declared that the Church had no authority to ordain women as priests. The document did not contain a statement on women deacons. The Synod on Synodality, which concluded last Sunday, described the question of the ordination of women deacons as open in its final document.”

The Pope Leaves Open the Debate on the Role of Women in the Church: Associations of Catholic Women and Voices of Important Cardinals Insist that the Possibility of Female Diaconate Is Not Excluded

Pope Francis at the end of a meeting with priests at Casa delle Suore Pie Discepole del Divin Maestro, Rome

 

Disappointment
The Pope leaves open the debate on the role of women in the Church

Associations of Catholic women and voices of important cardinals insist that the possibility of female diaconate is not excluded
Marina Garcia Dieguez

Rome . Updated:03/11/2024 - 05:00h

https://www.articulo14.es/autor/marinagd/

https://www.articulo14.es/internacional/el-papa-deja-abierto-el-debate-sobre-el-rol-de-la-mujer-en-la-iglesia-20241103.html


"The Synod of Bishops, the meeting of ecclesiastical hierarchies that has the challenge of deciding the future of the Church , has met again in October 2024, but the debate process will not be closed until spring of next year.

This call, which began in the autumn of 2023, was innovative from the very beginning. In an unusual way, the female vote was introduced and the debate on the role of women in Catholicism began to be addressed . But the complexity of this issue, which pits the feminist struggles of many ecclesiastical sectors of women against centuries of immobility, seems to be at a standstill . The final document has established that “there are no reasons that prevent women from assuming leadership roles in the Church ”, but the key will be to know what that phrase, still open, means.

Equality in the Church

In fact, during this month of October, the Argentine Pontiff explicitly asked the participants of the synodal journey, such as bishops, nuns, lay people and experts, not to focus on the issue of the female diaconate . The female diaconate is the greatest demand for equality within the Church and would mean that women could also access the step prior to a priest being ordained a priest and would allow, among many other tasks, to celebrate the word. Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez , prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and one of Bergoglio 's most trusted people , spoke about this issue in a recent press conference. "We know that the Holy Father has expressed that, at this moment, the question of the female diaconate is not ripe and he has asked that we not dwell on this possibility now," he added.

Previous steps are missing

According to Cardinal Fernandez, the Pope 's interest is to work, however, "on the role of women in the Church " by asking his dicastery to explore the possibility of development without sacred ordination. "To rush to ask for the ordination of deaconesses is not today the most important response to promote women ," added this cardinal, because "it does not resolve the question of women in the Church" since he believes that previous steps are missing. Fernandez concluded his statements by asking for the help of women who are heads of a Catholic religious community and who hold positions of authority to work together .

These statements, which came out in October, fit perfectly with the imprecision of the final document of the Synod published in recent days , which calls for further discussion of the issue and postpones a broader decision until next spring. But this impasse increases the disappointment of some sectors of the Church , which had placed all their hopes in this synodal path. The atmosphere is one of controversy and discontent because, as has often happened in his papacy, Francis has reflected with this issue an acceleration and the subsequent sudden stop. For example, in 2016 he announced the creation of a Study Commission on the diaconate for women , renewed in 2020, and now he closes doors through the words of one of the most trusted cardinals. Many interpret that he himself has lit a fire that he now intends to put out.
Clarify the position

One of the most influential cardinals at the moment, the Archbishop of Kinshasa, Fridolin Ambongo Besungu , has placed his trust in this commission. He said that all the questions are being studied in depth “in order to clarify them”, according to the magazine ‘ Vida Nouvelle’ . But, at the same time, in a briefing held a few days ago in the context of the Synod, he said that “the Church in Africa and I, personally, are not opposed to the possibility of studying the female diaconate , of considering this opening to having women deacons”. Ambongo is part of the famous C9, the Council of the nine cardinals with the most power in the Church who advise the Pope.

Pope Francis during a visit to the women's prison in Venice

Her statement provides clarity on a key point in understanding where this debate is heading in the Church: numbers . At present, the number of believers in the Catholic Church is growing only in the so-called global south. The data show that, especially since 2022, the number of baptized people has been growing in Africa . There, many women nuns already do much more than their role requires, equalling or even surpassing the importance of a priest. These women are crucial to the religious and social development of some communities, and part of their demands focus on making it clear to Rome that they already take care of many aspects because there are not enough priests or because they simply attend to the needs of the parishes in which they are located.
“Daughter, wife and mother”

Over the years, the Pope has reiterated an idea of ​​women as representing the maternal side of the Church . He said in : “The Church needs this, because the Church is a woman: daughter, wife and mother, and who else but a woman can reveal her face?” But the great demand of women fighting from within is focused on a recognition that is not based on their role of care and accompaniment, but that also includes them in decision-making and administrative power, just like a priest has.


Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City

In fact, just a few days ago a group of women belonging to the International Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP) decided, in a symbolic way, to be ordained as priests a few kilometres from the Vatican. The place is quite unusual, on a floating building on the Tiber converted into a kind of Church, where a “bishop” has ordained three Catholic “priestesses” and three “deaconesses”, according to the Vaticanist of the Italian daily ' Repubblica' Iacopo Scaramuzzi . A ceremony without canonical value, but which serves to provoke a debate that seems blocked at the moment by Pope Francis himself despite the steps taken in recent months.
What are your demands?

Kate McElwee is the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference , which tries to unite the voices of women fighting for female ordination and equality within the Church. “Women, including the Church, have been silenced for generations. Our role is to make them feel welcomed so that they can raise their voices ,” she explains to Article 14. This is a debate that is still completely open, but the disappointment for this group of women is that the appointments of some to high ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy during this decade of Bergoglio's papacy are exceptions and that the Vatican itself has wanted to remove this issue from the discussions of the Synod , a fundamental place to decide the future of the Church. “I think that Francis is blocked on this issue and this saddens us,” she adds.


Pope Francis and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

“They want to be human beings with full rights in the Church, just like men . We want baptism to become, truly, the proof of equality between men and women . Many, even if they do not wish to be ordained priests, understand that this is a debate that the Church has to face in order to regain its credibility,” adds McElwee. And, according to the numbers, to ensure its survival."