WUNRN
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/women-as-priests.html?ref=world&_r=0 -
Website Link Includes Click to Photo Gallery.
Women as Priests
By JUDITH LEVITT - September
29, 2012
Reformers within the Roman Catholic
Church have been calling for the ordination of women as priests. The
Judith Levitt
Andrea M. Johnson was ordained a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in 2007 and bishop in 2009. She has worked for many years as a religious educator at the adult and secondary levels. Her particular interest is ministry with marginalized and underserved Catholics.
For those
who disobey the prohibition, the consequences are swift and severe. In 2008,
the
Despite the
official church position, clergy and laity have been fighting for the
ordination of women since the early 1970s, hoping to expand upon the Vatican II
reforms. And according to a 2010 poll by The New York Times and CBS, 59 percent
of American Catholics favor the ordination of women.
In the last
10 years the
I grew up as
a Catholic, although I don’t practice now. The first time I saw a female Roman
Catholic priest on the church altar, dressed in traditional robes, performing
the Eucharist and all of the rituals that I grew up with, I was amazed at how
deeply it affected me emotionally. It had simply never occurred to me that a
woman could preside over the church.
The Roman
Catholic Church’s argument against the ordination of women is simple and relies
on the logic of tradition: “that’s what we have always done.” Pope John Paul II
issued an apostolic letter in 1994 saying that the church had no authority to
ordain women because, among other reasons, Christ chose only men to be his
apostles. Pope Benedict XVI agrees with his predecessor and insists that the
church need offer no further justification for its opposition to women as
priests, calling instead for a “radicalism of obedience.”
But
contemporary theologians, historians and priests have been challenging the
historical basis of the
Karen L.
King’s recent discovery of a scrap of papyrus making reference to Jesus’ wife,
and to a female disciple, adds weight to the charge that the
I photographed priests and bishops
of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement to alter my own deep-seated
perception of priests as male. I tried to capture their devotion and conviction
and pay tribute to their efforts to reform the church.