Christina Moriera ARCWP- Sharing Her Priestly Ministry in a Catholic Community in Spain: Interviews and Meetings with Journalists in Spain and France

 https://youtu.be/f4vUbVf4q4I

 

I had an interview for TV Valencia (Spain) to be published June 5th 

- An interview with a French journalist who is writing a book about women abused in Catholic church and he believes womenpriests can save the church... maybe!

- In July I'm invited to lead a  5 days retreat for "Communion Béthanie" (France) an inclusive christian religious institution for LGBTIQ people. I feel so honoured and joyful because they did trust in me as woman!

 

Catholic Women Preach- Homily -Ascension

 https://youtu.be/OidwdCkOfhE

Ida Raming RCWP with Christaine Florin- Article

Left: Ida Raming RCWP            Right: Christaine Florin

“Ida Raming's bishop's apartment lies between heaven and earth. On the tenth floor of an enormous high-rise building in the Asemwald district in the south of Stuttgart. The futuristic settlement island from 1970 - three immense high-rise blocks on the hill of an arterial road, surrounded by a lovely hilly landscape - is reminiscent of the urban development ideals and progress optimism of that time. People wanted to create something new, cut off old habits, break with tradition, think big. Last but not least, high-rise buildings are the greatest possible contrast to stately homes and representative villas. Here, everyone is equal.

It is no coincidence that Ida Raming feels at home in the Asemwald. Her small apartment is full of mementos of her life's struggle against supposedly insurmountable traditions. More precisely: against the discriminatory exclusion of women from the priesthood in the Catholic Church. The now 90-year-old has fought for this, in thoughts, words and works.
For the interview with Christiane Florin, responsible for religious topics at Deutschlandfunk and also author of passionate books against the discrimination of women in the Catholic Church, she has set up a small library to the left of her chair: Her doctoral thesis from 1973, the later new editions, plus several other writings. If one were to add Christiane Florin's books, one would have not only a scientific-theological but also a psychological-practical treatise on the history of clerical injustice from the perspective of disappointed Catholic women.

On the right side of Ida Raming's armchair is the paperback edition of the Roman Catholic missal with the liturgical texts for each day. A small detail only, but it marks the difference between the two women. Ida Raming felt early in herself the desire to become a priestess, and in 2002 she had herself ordained to the priesthood on the Danube by the excommunicated Argentine bishop Romulo Braschi, founder of an independent Free Catholic Church. For this she was excommunicated herself.
Nevertheless, she will not let go of her church and continues to fight for recognition and justice. Christiane Florin, who was recently awarded the Walter Dirks Prize for her journalistic work and her enlightening research into the abuse scandal, is tired of it. She no longer places any hope in this church, although (or perhaps because) she has tried for a long time. Florin and Raming know and appreciate each other. They agree on many points in their analysis, but not in their conclusion. But it becomes clear why so many younger women leave the church or want nothing to do with it.

Fundamentals of misogyny "Truth is stronger than lies," Ida Raming says right at the beginning. It is her conviction that keeps her going, the mission that drives her. The lie is the disdain for women, an anthropology devised by patriarchs that wants to deny women access to the altar and ordination, even though there is no biblical justification for it. She once made this lie the subject of her dissertation. Even today, her voice sounds incredulous and angry as she reads from a commentary on the Church Father Ambrose (339-397). "Woman must veil her head because she is not made in God's image. In order that she may be visible as subject to violence, and because sin has taken its beginning through her, she must wear this sign." She quoted these and many other passages in her book to point out the foundations of the Catholic image of women that are still effective today. She taps her index finger to her forehead when she is upset about dogmatic theology's forgetfulness of history and raises it when she lectures. She will have to touch her forehead countless times this afternoon. This millennia-old lie. Yet the truth is lying on the table, right next to her. One would only have to read it.

Again and again, she interrupts her speech and asks that this document or that folder be handed to her to clarify what she has just said. It is difficult for her to stand up, but her sentences are precise and her voice is fresh, full of energy and passion. Everyone needs to be convinced. Bishops as well as visitors. Anyone who has something to say in the Catholic Church has certainly received mail from Ida Raming. Historical as far as it goes "If you research this as historically as you do, you realize the mendacity of today's argumentation," Florin counters. She speaks more soberly, more detachedly. With her own irony and inimitable wit. But also a touch more bitter. A few years ago, she too set out to find out what was behind the injustice. Not because she ever wanted to become a pastor or priest. The question of ministry is of secondary interest to her at best. She never even wanted to become an altar server, even though this was just becoming possible in Germany at the time. Christiane Florin researched out of pure curiosity. "I asked myself: what would I actually have to believe about the nature of women if I were properly Roman Catholic?" She combed through the statements of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well as the influential writings of Joseph Ratzinger and repeatedly came across a hair-raising image of gender. "The texts are scandalous," she says, "because they state: Because you are female, you have this destiny and this place that we assign to you and that you must not leave." 

In 2017, she wrote a book, "The Women's Revolt," about her search for the theological underpinnings and practical shape of misogyny in the church. Her conclusion: "The history of the Catholic Church is a consistent history of misogyny." Structural discrimination, she said, begins well before the issue of office, namely when (church) men describe the "nature of women" as servile and passive. First, it was argued for centuries, with reference to the evil Eve, that women lacked the likeness of God. Recently, the reason for the exclusion is that "Jesus was a man and called only male apostles. But that "is not a historical argument at all," Florin said. It was invented, he says, only when talk of women's inferiority came under pressure with the women's movement and became so embarrassing that no one who wanted to be taken seriously could continue to assert it with impunity. "That's right!" says Ida Raming. "Today they don't say the woman is inferior, they say she is different. But the legal consequences are the same." Lies and deception, she says, "but we're not so stupid that we don't recognize that." Again, the index finger goes to the forehead.

Ida Raming at some point no longer adhered to the rules that derived from this reasoning. "An unjust law demands no obedience," she says, quoting from the book of Acts, "You must obey God more than men." While studying theology, she had already felt the desire to become a priest. At first, the professional hopelessness as a theologian had thrown her into crisis. "I suffered a lot from not finding a place in the church as a woman," Raming says of that time. Then she met Iris Müller, who had come to Münster as a refugee from the GDR to study theology at the university. "She fought for women's ordination from the beginning, and that made a big impression on me," Raming says. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Iris Müller also lived in Asemwald's high-rise for a long time. When she needed care, Ida Raming visited her as often as she could in the nearby home. The name Iris is written on a coffee cup, white on a blue background. Ida Raming vividly recounts how she and Iris went to see Joseph Ratzinger in Münster, who was a young professor and council advisor at the time. The conversation was polite, but ice cold. He did not look at her. Ratzinger let the two students know in a detailed letter after the conversation that he would not stand up for their concerns. 

Many years later, in June 2002, Raming and Müller were among the seven women who were consecrated on a Danube ship. A photo shows Raming and some of her comrades-in-arms beaming and in full regalia. Consecration as resistance. The excommunication followed immediately. Joseph Ratzinger had signed it. Even today, Ida Raming is outraged above all by the official reactions, which she quotes by heart. They would have brought trouble on the church, damaged its divine constitution and, moreover, missed her destiny as a woman. Today, no one would say that anymore. Unlike in 2002, the Danube women priests are perceived more as pioneers. "When we were ordained, it was said that we were completely out of character. The Munich ordinariate spoke of a 'sectarian spectacle.' Now there is no more of that." The wind has changed. As a student, Ida Raming still had to find a "Doktorvater" and a publisher to publish her dissertation. Today, Germany's Catholic women's associations and half the bishops' conference are pleading for the opening of all offices. A late cold comfort for Ida Raming, one might think. But her eyes sparkle when she reads out letters of reply from bishops, from which she concludes that the writer has changed his mind about women's ordination. She is convinced she has triggered a change of thinking in many a dignitary. The progressive ones, she says, all wrote personally. One bishop expresses "gratitude" for her letter. Another writes that the exclusion of women is "a great challenge," though ordination to the priesthood is "not a human right." Each letter of response is like a drop of oil in the fire of her energy. 

Even in the Vatican, Ida Raming thinks, they probably have a few allies. Humble pleas to the Pope Christiane Florin has little understanding for this optimism. "Where do you get the hope that arguments can change anything?" she asks, addressing Raming. "Too many people benefit from this system. It's attractive to them that there are areas where women are left out." She also doesn't see a "women's revolt." On the contrary. Why, she keeps asking herself, is there actually so little opposition to this teaching? She spoke with many committed Catholic women and had the impression that many were actually quite content with their assigned place. "That has a lot to do with Catholic socialization, for example, that you are habituated to think in terms of possibilities," Florin says. "Especially in discussions of church policy, women think in terms of limitations: They just do what is possible under church law." Even in the Synodal Way, he says, the women's issue fell almost completely to the back burner. There, he said, it was agreed to humbly ask the pope for an examination of the diaconate of women. "Even the bishops from the so-called reform camp chickened out," Florin comments. "If they really wanted equality, they could just ordain a woman and see what happens." Those who lose office as a result, he said, lose it for their convictions. "But I think they are just not convinced at the core that the sexes should be equal." 

Ida Raming, on the other hand, took the Synod Way resolutions as encouragement. "We are only making small progress, but the trend is toward full equality," she says. She has devoted her entire life to this cause and has no regrets. The truth will prevail. Only when that will be, she can't for the life of her say. Until then, they just keep going. In the meantime, she has become a bishop. She sometimes holds services in the small Protestant chapel in Stuttgart-Asemwald, and she is in constant exchange with a network of Catholic women priests that includes about 300 women worldwide. And Christiane Florin? Can she not even imagine a change? "Yes, I can," she says, "when something collapses, there is change." The collapse, after all, is discernible. "The Catholic Church in Germany is losing the young women," Florin says. Perhaps that will eventually lead the church to decide against discrimination. Ida Raming says goodbye sitting down. She is convinced: Others will stand up and continue on their way.”

 (Posted in Facebook by our Deacon, Regina Laedwig 
»Wahrheit ist stärker als Lüge«
publik-forum.de
»Wahrheit ist stärker als Lüge«
Ida Raming und Christiane Florin stehen für zwei Generationen des katholischen Feminismus – und sind sich keineswegs bei allem einig. Ein Treffenida Raming on left

Visit with Carol Driggers at Sarasota Rehabilitation and Health Center today

Carol was delighted with the prayer shawl I gave her. It was knitted by  Joanne Corbeil, a member of our community at Oakwood Manor. I have her a large mug filled with lifesavers.

Carol was in good spirits and shared that she is getting good care. Before leaving, we prayed together.

Happy Mother’s Day: a Song for Mothers

Let us give thanks for our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and all this have nurtured us.

I give thanks today for my mother, Bridie Meehan. Her love of family, kindness to those in need and deep faith continues to inspire, encourage me everyday.

This song is for the world’s mothers

Medals for Mothers by Rhonda Vincent

https://youtu.be/5rWpoACrqBc

A Reflection on Mother’s Day by Judy Lee RCWP

 https://judyabl.blog/2023/05/12/happy-mothers-day-reflections-of-a-roman-catholic-woman-priest/

Mother’s Day Memorial Service for Jean Muniz

           

Holy Angels by Sara Thomson

           https://youtu.be/MddARnvjJGQ

 

Greeting: Welcome to this circle of remembrance to celebrate the life of Jean. Just as a voice resounds with echoes and a stone jettisoned into a pond creates ripples in the water, so we know that Jean’s love and wisdom continues in echoes and lasting ripples. We trust that the sacred spark of life created in Jean, her Divine essence of unique gifts, obvious to us while she was physically with us, will not diminish with time, nor fade from the heavenly universe that is now her home. Amen.

 

Psalm 23: Let us pray:

 

O my Beloved, 

You are my shepherd,

I shall not want;

You bring me to green pastures for rest

And lead me beside still waters

Renewing my spirit;

You restore my soul.

You lead me in the path of goodness

To follow Love’s way.

 

Even though I walk through the 

Valley of the shadow and of death, 

I am not afraid;

For You are ever with me;

Your rod and your staff

They guide me,

They give me strength and comfort.

 

You prepare a table before me

In the presence of all my fears;

You bless me with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me

All the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the heart of the Beloved forever.

Amen.(Translation by Nan Merrill, Praying the Psalms

 

Gospel: John 14:1-3

Don’t let your hearts be troubled.

You have faith in God.

In God’s house there are many dwelling places.

Otherwise, how could I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you?

I am indeed going to prepare a place for you.

And then I will come back to take you, that where I am, there you may be as well.

 

Tribute to Jean Loving God, we now remember the blessings that Jean brought to us.

You are invited to share a thought, prayer, poem or brief story about Jean as we grieve her loss and celebrate her life.

 

Farewell Prayer:

Jean,

The hand of God holds you,

The peace of God enfolds you,

The love that dreamed and formed you surrounds you.

The light of God beside you, above, beneath, inside you,

The light that shines guided you home into the loving arms of God.

(Adapted from The Hand of God Shall Hold You by Marty Haugen)

 

Closing Blessing: Let us extend our hands in blessing:

Jean, 

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May you be held in the palm of God’s hand. (Irish Blessing)

Concluding Song: Go in beauty by Robert Gas’s​

 

 

Good News about upside of being a heretic, article by Barbara Brown Taylor

 from her book- Leaving Church

Women priests and our community in Sarasota and the Upper Room
We are modem-day happy heretics!

“Where Mother Church is concerned, those who stray furthest not only forfeit her protection; they may also be shunned as heretics by those who stay home. 

I have Elaine Pagels to thank for the revelation that the word heresy comes from the Greek word for “choice.”

 Early on, before the Christian church had a solid center, a wide variety of people who all called themselves Christian understood the Christ in a wide variety of ways. There were the Ebionites, who understood him as a thoroughgoing Jew. There were the Arians, who understood him as an exemplary human being, and the Docetists, who understood him as God in human disguise. For almost three centuries, these choices existed in wild disarray.

 Then the emperor Constantine, in his imperial wisdom, understood that a faith with no center would never anchor his crumbling empire. So he called all the bishops together, fed them lunch, and asked them to say something definitive about the nature of God in Christ. He asked them to sort through the choices and agree on one that the Christian church could go forward with. This required many more lunches and some theological bloodletting as well; but, when the bishops had finished crafting a central confession of Christian faith, those who did not choose this option became known as heretics. 

In my closet I have a T-shirt with many of their names on it, which I wore to bed while I was sleeping in the wilderness: Matthew Fox, Hans Küng, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Martin Luther, Menno Simons, Meister Eckhart, Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Hildegard of Bingen, Galileo, Copernicus, Peter Abelard, John Scotus Erigena, Tertullian, Origen, Jesus. All of these people made unauthorized choices in their love of God. They saw things they were not supposed to see or said things they were not supposed to say. 

They wondered about things they were not supposed to wonder about, and when Mother Church told them to stop they did not obey her. Some of them died for their disobedience while others were locked in their rooms. Still others were sent out of the house and told to never come back. Many of them are spiritual heroes now. At least one of them is revered as the Son of God, but none of them got where they were going without passing through the wilderness first. 

Given their amazing comebacks, might it be time for people of good faith to allow that God’s map is vast, with room on it for both a center and an edge? While the center may be the place where the stories of the faith are preserved, the edge is the place where the best of them happened.”

¿THE GOSPEL, KIDNAPPED? By Olga Lucia Alvarez Benjumea ARCWP

 Olga Lucia Álvarez Benjumea ARCWP*

This is a question I have been asking myself. When I was studying in a Catholic school, I remember that in religion classes what they taught us was "One Hundred Lessons of Sacred History".
And the Gospel? Humm
I was fortunate to attend the classes of Fr. Carlos Bravo sj. (r.i.p.d.) in the Ecclesiastical Faculties of the Jesuits, -Bogotá- to whom I owe much of my spiritual formation. 
Carlos' classes have left an open world for me to continue investigating, to grow in my formation and above all in the search for the Divinity and most important thing, to learn to share, from my ministry to make known the Tenderness, care, and love with which the Divinity protects us.
With him, I learned the true value of my Baptism! "I am God's daughter, created in his image and likeness" (Genesis 1:26).
With much pain and sadness, I later found a decree that ignores the text of Genesis, known as the Gratian Decree (jurist) of the year 1140 that says: "Women are not the image of God" and must go with their heads covered when they are in front of a man. This Decree influences and transcends the Canons of the Roman Catholic Church, at present, until today, such as Canon 1024 which says: "Only the baptized male receives the sacred ordination validly".
Both the Gratian Decree and Canon 1024 are the fundamental bases for the Roman Catholic Church to deny women the right to announce the Good News through the presbyterial ministry. Message delivered to us: Matthew 28:5-10
We, Roman Catholic Presbyterian Women, reject, protest, and request that these norms, which seek to marginalize and marginalize us, be abolished, discarded, and annulled. 
We, Roman Catholic women priests, do not pretend to imitate the men, in their clothing, in their celebrations, or in building temples, which today we see closed.
Our priestly ministry is different, it is a service in Community, announcing the Good News with the participation of women, men, the elderly, and children. The Good News is not exclusive to men.
We thank the Bishop of Rome for his kind and delicate words of a gentleman towards us women. We are not asking him to give us jobs in offices. It is urgent to announce the Good News, realizing the miracle of the Eucharist: "I have come to bring life, and that they may have it more abundantly" John 10:10. These are strong words inviting us to be human.
We want more Gospel and fewer rules, sanctions, inhuman disciplines, scorn, and marginalization. We want a Gospel of justice, peace, tenderness, welcome, and protection, not to seek fame and be overbearing.
Women, the time has come to announce the Good News, let us unite, let us close ranks, and let us fight until the announcement of the Good News is today and always.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1) https://es.scribd.com/document/353514794/Decreto-de-Graciano#
2) https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/esp/documents/cic_libro4_cann1024-1025_sp.html


*Roman Catholic Presbyterian

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Accessing the New by Elaine Pfaff ARCWP

Elaine signs her Ordination Certificate after being ordained in ARCWP

A short year ago I identified my heart's desire as sharing life in the unfinished.  Followers of Ignatian spirituality and students of contemporary authors such as Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer  will recognize the practice of stating one's intention at the outset of a meditation, prayer period, pilgrimage,  project , or commitment.  To be in touch with one's deepest and most encompassing desire is revelatory , visionary in nature, and bears within it the uncanny power to manifest.  Of course it is the Mystery we call God Who implants and empowers such envisioning ~ until what you see is what you get!

I was seeing unfinished rev business and my desire to share life as the unfinished person I am - engaged in the messiness of becoming a reciprocal giver.  And so I journeyed another transformative year in September 2021 with a long cherished Community we call Mystics Anonymous.  My heart's desire emerged  front and center as I was surprisingly given  assuredness in the midst of unknowing; enough hope from the midst of imperfections.  And as though to further mark the time,  I was being readied for a delicious discovery of an article subtitled “Theology for an Unfinished Universe”, encountered by chance the following June after closing the year for summer break.

So, what happened this time as I stood inside my vulnerability again as an earthling in the making?  The Universe set off a constant stream of chatter – synchronicities and sweet nothings that wrapped my loving family and communities.  I dreamed again of the divine feminine; my husband dreamed symbols of my ordination, soon to come at our annual meeting and retreat in Fort Meyers.  I would become a deacon in July, a priest in October of 2022.  After decades of moving and being deacon and unofficially sanctioned priest in several communities, I would take on the new identity as a formally ordained woman, like  my sister deacons and priests in the women's  priest movement. 

 On the way home after the conference in Florida, I passed by an airport coffee shop with the unlikely name “Chalice Cafe.”  The connecting flight was on time for the first time in a month.  Now that's new!  And the most visceral sign of affirmation was in our friendly shuttle driver.  She announced her name - “Nova, “ she said.  “It means new.”

My heart's desire for 2022-2023 is to see what's new and to engage in it.  

Elaine Pfaff  is a spiritual director.  She lives with her husband of 54 years in North Carolina near two adult children and 6 grandchildren.  Her ministry has involved home church liturgies, various retreat  design and facilitation.    A member of Free Spirit Inclusive Catholic Community and Sophia Inclusive Community.  She is active in social justice.