Roman Catholic Women Priests
A Christmas story of coffee cake, ex-nuns, and true faith
I’m pretty sure I could get excommunicated for sharing this. That’s okay, I could probably get excommunicated for a lot of things.
Once upon a time, for quite a while, I worshipped with Roman Catholic Women Priests.1 We were a completely broke family, surviving on unemployment checks and charitable donations. We had asked for help at our previous parish, and been rebuffed (we were literally hungry and they literally did not feed us.) I was being chewed up inside by the fact that women weren’t allowed to offer Mass. Like a responsible Papist, I had a long talk with our priest about this and several other matters of conscience, and he gave me the same talking points that I had already read about at length:
Jesus only chose men as apostles so we must, also.
It is Sacred Tradition (we have always done it that way.)
Jesus was a man, and priests must be in persona Christi (in the person of Christ, in the place of Christ himself) to make the Sacraments work.
To which I replied:
The first Apostle - the “Apostle to the Apostles”, as even the most traditional types say, was Mary of Magdala.
Are we sure this is capital “T” tradition and not a lower “t” tradition, aka a human one? Pretty sure Jesus was mum on the issue.
Jesus is but one part of the trinity. The trinity has no gender. We believe in “theosis”, where believers can become unified with God regardless of gender.
My points were clumsily made because I am not a theologian and I was very hurt and angry. He was duty-bound to explain the teaching according to his vows, over scheduled, henpecked, and struggling with burnout. I get it. I get it! But as I relayed: my family was in trouble. My question was not answered to my satisfaction. My family was hungry, I was hungry on several levels. I’m an asshole, I struggle with pride every single day. So we left.
In any case, we started going to Mass with the Women Priests. We have never received a more loving, gentle, accepting welcome in any religious community before or since. It wasn’t obnoxious - there was no “ohhh, honey, we’re so glad you’re here”, there were no uninvited hugs, no “please introduce yourselves to the community.” The Mass occurred in the rhythm and rubric we knew by heart, there was communion, It felt very much like home. Every conceivable subgroup of the LGBTQ+ community, excused and alienated from the Church proper, was participating with great tenderness and palpable joy.
After Masses, they had little coffee hours - and for the first time, my husband and sons actually wanted to attend. My sons wanted to participate in the Mass - they served at the altar. The priests, deacons, and community members were affable and had wry senses of humor and incredible backstories that we ate up. Lots of laughing and spraying coffeecake crumbs onto the table. Importantly, to me, they were all whip-smart and had already thought deeply, intelligently, and collectively about everything related to the faith.
These women loved the Catholic faith and took the conscience thing dead seriously - that’s why they left the mainstream church. They all accepted their excommunications graciously and kept on living the faith. They all went through many years of seminary training and could answer every theological question I asked - patiently, meticulously, generously. “What about apostolic succession? How do you know your ordinations are valid?” Like I said: I’m an asshole. They were patient.
Christmas of that year, we went to the coffee hour like usual. After our usual goofing around, snacking, and cleaning up, an extremely awkward moment blossomed. The cigarette-smelling church hall got quiet, and people started looking at each other. The bravest and feistiest community member of all, Mary (of course), stood up and said “we got a little something for you, nothing fancy.”
As it turns out, they had been gathering context clues and meeting secretly amongst themselves since shortly after we joined the community. Mary handed my husband a crusty envelope with 800 dollars in it. I cried immediately - we hadn’t been able to buy our guys presents that year. They started pulling wrapped gifts out of various crannies - lots of them. My boys both got the frenzied, spiral-eyed, acquisitive faces that kids everywhere get on Christmas morning. My husband grabbed my sweaty, shaky hand there in front of everybody and spoke for us (because I was simpering like a bitch). “We don’t know what to say. Thank you all, so, so much. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just…don’t. Cut it out. This is weird”, said Mary. Her eyes weren’t glassy because she was tough as nails - an ex-nun teacher with a buzz cut and no time for foolishness - but several of the others were. My boys had already torn into a couple of the gifts and were trying to figure out how the laser tag guns worked. I could barely put words together as they ushered us out to our fucked up minivan and helped us load gifts into the trunk. “Get out of here. Merry Christmas.” Mary gave me a hug. It was like hugging a flagpole.
They paid our overdue bills, they put sharp new clothes on my kids’ backs. They even embroidered little bathroom towels for us with the community’s name on them. These folks were Christ to my family that Christmas. They loved us extravagantly, wastefully, recklessly - like Jesus.
I loved them, I love them, I will always love them. Every single one of their beautiful souls. I will always defend them vehemently and stand up for them and their right to call themselves Catholic.
I still struggle with the Catholic doctrine that there is something completely unacceptable about 50% of the human race being called to preach and administer sacraments to God’s people. I am no theologian and the argument about these things is waaaay beyond my pay grade. But I have signed up, by virtue of my profession, to struggle honestly and conscientiously with Catholic teaching for the rest of my life.
Pace e bene,
K
for the persnickety: yes, I have since reconciled about the apostasy part. But no, I do not feel one speck of guilt about a single moment I spent with them.