Married Catholic Woman Ordained!

CANADIANS ATTEND

Joanna Manning writes: I was invited to lay hands on Mary Ramerman during the ritual of her ordination as a representative of Canadian church reform groups. There were other Canadians there including Saundra and Paul Glynn, Virginia and Rymond Lafond, Fintan Kilbride and Eloise Bucholtz.

Mary Ramerman's Story by Joanna Manning

"I pray" wrote Mary Ramerman in the message on the front page of the Order of Service for her ordination," that I will be a voice for peace in the midst of war, friendship in the face of rejection, forgiveness in the face of sin, action in the presence of apathy, simplicity in the face of materialism, and generosity in the face of greed."

On November 17, 2001, Mary was ordained as a Catholic priest in the presence of about 3000 people in a tumultuous, colorful, solemn and Spirit-filled ceremony. She was formally called to ordination by representatives of the Church of Spiritus Christi in Rochester, by Spiritus Christi's twin church of Borgne in Haiti, and by former prisoners, recovering addicts, and abused women and other lay groups who are an integral part of the Spiritus Christi community.

The sacrament of ordination was conferred by Bishop Peter Hickman of the Old Catholic Church, who was assisted in the rite of the laying on of hands by representatives from the worldwide Women's Ordination movement, from international Catholic reform groups and by clergy from many other Christian denominations.

Mary's journey to ordination began when, at the age of seven, she felt called to be a priest. In the 1980s, Mary and her husband Jim were serving as lay ministers in the diocese of Santa Rosa, California when they heard about a parish called Corpus Christi in Rochester led by Fr. Jim Callan. Corpus Christi had started to centre its community life on outreach to the poor and to celebrate diversity and inclusiveness as part of the Catholic sacramental tradition. So Mary and Jim packed up their tents, and moved with their across the continent to Rochester.

Gradually, step by step, the community invited Mary to assume more priestly roles. She started wearing a half stole and participating in the Eucharist, though never the consecration. All were welcomed to communion at Corpus Christi, divorced and remarried, gay and straight and Father Jim started to celebrate a form of gay commitment ceremonies. In 1998, the axe fell when Cardinal Ratzinger informed Bishop Clark that all this must cease and desist or else the two priests, Jim Callan and Enrique Cadena, would be excommunicated and the community forced out of the Catholic Church. Corpus Christi's progressive church closed and after the shedding of much sweat and tears, Spiritus Christi arose from its ashes.

As biblical theologian Ched Myers put it in his speech at the banquet after Mary's ordination: "Unlike so many American Catholics who are so afraid to move beyond the limited spaces allowed by the magisterium, Mary is determined to open up new territory. She is stepping - no dancing - off the cliff of the present into the thin air of God's future. It is only through such leaps of faith that a prophet conjures up ground beneath her feet…this mystical ground that appears under the prophet's skywalk - this is the rock upon which Christ builds and rebuilds his Church."

Singing, dancing and drumming were woven into the prayers and ritual of ordination. Moments of prolonged applause and cheering were matched with moments of absolute silence and stillness. There was dancing in the aisles and around the altar. And all around the mighty wind of the Spirit was felt, surging through the assembly and infecting all those present with exhilaration, a taste of freedom and new hope for the future of the Church.

Several speakers alluded to Mary's assumption of the full stole of priestly office as a casting off of the veil of Taliban- like confinement imposed on Catholic women by the Vatican. It was especially meaningful that Mary's first Mass was celebrated in the church where Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, leaders in women's suffrage and anti-slavery movements, had worshipped.

Mary chose the John's story of the woman at the well as the gospel for her first Mass on Sunday. In her homily, she spoke about Jesus' call to a woman of a different race and gender with a questionable past to become one of his first apostles. He shared with this woman a drink from the well of his unquenchable love for all of humanity. The mission of the church today is to be a conduit to the world of this great stream of compassion that flows from the very heart of God.

Mary's ordination did not pass without comment from Rochester's Catholic hierarchy. There were rumblings about a declaration of schism and the threat of canonical penalties for any priest who attended the ceremony. A woman stood outside, writing down the names of those who attended so she could report them to Bishop Matthew Clark.

Inside we prayed for the Pope and the bishops. Soon God will open their eyes and ears also to a new awareness of the good news. The Spirit is being poured out anew on women and men, married and celibate, gay and straight, to go out into the streets of the city to proclaim the word of God, each from his or her own life experience, as the Spirit gives utterance to each.