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Is there anything else you wish people knew?
It's important to me that people see that I did what the men do who prepare for the priesthood. I took that traditional path. I got my master's of divinity. I was a deacon for 10 months. I just wish more Catholics who find themselves alienated from the church could find a church home. If the ECC could be that church home for them, I'd be so excited for them.

© 2007

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: ncpatl @ 11/15/2008 12:29:40 PM

    Women were ordained in the early church. For example, Phoebe, a deaconess, is singled out for praise by Paul-- not exactly known as a feminist kind of guy. And of course early priests were married, too. The Church has betrayed this Christian tradition and its own history by insisting on a heirarchy made up only of men trying to be celibate. The excuse you always get is that priests have to be men because Jesus chose men to be apostles. Well, Jesus chose Jewish fishermen and tradesmen, and the Church doesn't insist on that. Having a Y chromosome is equally irrelevant.

    As a person who was raised Catholic-- CAtholic schools and an excellent Jesuit college-- I have seen first-hand the damage done when the Church restricts the priesthood to men, and to men who think they can manage celibacy.

    Vatican II said "The Church is the peope of God." The Church's priesthood should reflect that. Especially because the US bishops have said that sexism is a sin.

    My choice has been to worship elsewhere-- I can't deal with the hypocrisy of the Catholic church anymore. But as a cultural CAtholic, I cheer on this wonderful woman and others trying to change the church from within, or through splinter groups.

  • Posted By: dva_tsenta @ 05/09/2008 1:13:57 AM

    +1 - This woman is not a Catholic at all, much less a Catholic priest. She is very mistaken and lost. I wish journalists would be more precise with their wording - misleading information like that in this article could lead those who know nothing or very little of the Catholic Church to incorrect conclusions. I must also object to the following comparison: "It [the Church] does, however, recognize the more than 100 already married men who became priests after a conversion to Roman Catholicism." It is very misleading to juxtapose the Church's recognition of married men (mostly Protestant ministers) who converted to Catholicism and were ordained priests with the woman in question here. The Church's tradition of the celibate priesthood is not written in stone as is the tradition, supported by well-considered theology, of only men being ordained as priests. I hope that the author, Karen Springen, will be more precise in the future.

  • Posted By: mmsiciliana@dls.net @ 05/08/2008 9:00:51 PM

    Sorry, Jessica Rowley is not a "Catholic" priest. The community she "ministers to is Catholic" in name only. Unlike the Catholic Church, which is the Church founded by Jesus Christ, the organization she belongs to was founded by a human being. The Catholic Church is universal, worldwide, not simply for people who live in Webster Groves, MO. And Jesus did not "welcome everyone to the table." Read what he had to say to the Pharisees who thought they knew how God operated.

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