Thursday, July 23, 2009

Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling
A National Tour Encouraging Women’s Ordination.

DATE: Friday, August 7, 2009

TIME: 7:00 PM

PLACE: First Christian Church
1400 N. 10th Street
McAllen, T
X

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest and a School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) founder, has been one of the few Catholic priests willing to speak publicly about Women’s Ordination within the Catholic Church. In spite of his being threatened with excommunication by his Church, Fr. Roy remains steadfast in his support for Women’s Ordination.

Father Roy and other women’s ordination advocates are now hitting the road to encourage a national movement for a more inclusive church and the local chapter of Call to Action (www.cta-rgv.org) is sponsoring the local stop of their national Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling Tour.

Father Bourgeois, 70, who began his 36-year ministry as a Maryknoll priest in Bolivia, has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America since 1980, when a Salvadoran death squad raped and killed four American churchwomen. In 1990 he founded the School of the Americas Watch (http://www.soaw.org), which has been holding weekend vigils annually at Fort Benning, Ga., to demand closure of the US Army's combat training school for Latin American soldiers.

What led to the altercation between the Vatican and Father Bourgeois was the fact that he showed his support for women's ordination by delivering a homily at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 58, on August 9, 2008, in Lexington, Ky. She was the sixth woman ordained that year in the United States, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Sevre-Duszynska is among 60 other women who have been ordained since June 29, 2002, when the first seven women stepped forward, according to the Women's Ordination Conference. Four of these women priests have become bishops and nearly 100 more are in preparation programs sponsored by the
Roman Catholic Women Priests.

The work of the Women's Ordination Conference has continued since t
hen and the idea of women priests is no longer an aberration. According to a September 2005 Gallup Organization survey, 63 percent of US Catholics said they supported ordaining women. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in April 2005 found the same result.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois will be joined by Rev. Linda Whitworth-Reed, Co-Past
or of the First Presbyterian Church in McAllen, who will also be speaking on women's ordination within the Presbyterian Church and what ordination has meant to her.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're wasting our time fighting for women's ordination. Why does anyone need to be ordained? We are all called to be a priestly people.

Anonymous said...

here we go again...you women want to be ordained then join another religion....que passa....

Anonymous said...

Overheard in 1963: Here we go again...you negroes (or worse!) want civil rights then join the country club...what gives...

Anonymous said...

to anonymous 2
With people like you it is like digging in water. What are you trying to compare.....
you ask what gives....
I would be stupid to continue in this conversation....

Anonymous said...

Anon who said: "I would be stupid to continue in this conversation...."

Yes, go on...

Unknown said...

Last Sunday at mass, a "Couples for Christ" representative said during mass, that the biggest threat to the Catholic family is same sex marraige. I guess female clergy is on or near the top of there list. Neither is domestic violence, low paying jobs, dads not going to church with thier family, uncommited parish clergy, premariatal sex, divorce; should I go on. Get real people! I'v said it before and I'll say it again. The clergy is only intrested in protecting it's interest. In this case male domination.

GoodRiddance said...

In one post you say that churches like the one hosting this event are "stealing" our Catholic parishioners, yet in this case, you are joing hands with them! So much for loving the Church when you actively work to sow confusion and misrepresent yourselves and the Church. Read up on ordination, it's in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Oops, I forgot, you don't subscribe to the Catholic Church's catechism! Why not start your own stale non denominational man made congregation and leave the majority who do not subscribe to your beliefs in peace?

Anonymous said...

GoodRid said: "Why not start your own stale non denominational man made congregation...?"
Enough of man made religions (all up until now). We want a woman made religion! It might be better.

GoodRiddance said...

Human made so you simple minded can understand what I meant!!! We'll stay in the only Church founded by the God-Man Jesus Christ, which has His promise to endure till He returns. You can go the way of the Episcopalians, dead in life!!!

Anonymous said...

Why would the God-Man found such a sorry church? Racist, sexist, thieving, run by closet homosexuals. I think you misunderstand the God-Man.