In a couple of days, 67-year-old Georgia Walker plans to become Kansas City’s first female Catholic priest, at which point the Roman Catholic Church will excommunicate her. However, knowing that does not dishearten her.
“I don’t accept the legitimacy of that excommunication,” said Walker.
Since under Canon Law only men can become priests, the church will not be able to accept the legitimacy of Walker’s ordination.
“That’s their problem,” Walker said of the church.
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Walker’s steadfastness is a characteristic trait of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, a body of people who perceive the church to be overly authoritarian and unwilling to be inclusive. Instead of leaving the church however, this group hopes to change it from within.
Walker once was a professor of sociology at the University of Missouri before she decided to work as a financial officer and then a hospital manager. During her midlife, Walker converted to Catholicism and became a Sister of St. Joseph even though she did not take her final vows at that time. She is currently pursuing a degree in theology apart from helping former convicts to come out of prison and try to reintegrate with society.
As a priest, Walker, who is also a peace activist, wants to create a regular schedule to visit prisons in the Diocese of Kansas City so inmates can grow more familiar with the sacraments. Additionally, she wants to set up a community of worshippers while working for St. James Parish in Kansas City. However, the church seems to disagree with everything Walker wants to do, because Canon Law 1024 of the Roman Catholic Church clearly states only baptized men can be ordained as priests, a notion based on Jesus’ calling of only men to be his disciples.
To make matters worse for women who want to be priests, in 2004, Pope John Paul II signed an apostolic letter reiterating that priesthood is reserved for men only. After that, while Pope Francis raised hopes of bringing in more flexibility to the church, in 2013, he too said women could not become priests.
Walker said those rules “have been made by men who seemingly forget that the first person that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection was a woman. Did he make a mistake? Mary Magdalene was the first one to see him. She was the first one to start spreading the good news of his resurrection.”
Women priests claim authority through apostolic succession, which explains that the right to ordain was passed from bishop to bishop. Supporters of that idea say in earlier times, the church had several women priests and bishops, though they were gradually done away with over time.
The new movement kicked off with the ordination of seven women on a boat in the Danube River in 2002. In 2008, the Vatican said any woman found attempting to be ordained and any man attempting to ordain a woman would be excommunicated and deemed unworthy of receiving sacrament.
The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph issued a statement, saying, “Since this ‘ordination’ does not involve the participation of any validly ordained Catholic clergy, the diocese does not see a reason to comment any further.”
Walker said while the diocese clearly warned her of being excommunicated upon becoming priest, that did not dissuade her from continuing with her plan. Walker will be ordained by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan, who is known for traveling the country, ordaining women priests and deacons. In 2014 alone, Meehan ordained 25 such women.
Meehan is of the opinion that the church’s doctrine is such that it is driving people away.
“There is a big spiritual chasm in the heart of the church that does not reflect the love and compassion of God,” she said. “Women priests are saying everyone is welcome. There are no outsiders in God’s family.”
Donna Simon, pastor at St. Mark, said she has no patience for the idea that women cannot be priests.
“The logic for male (only) ordination is spurious,” she said. “Nowhere in the Bible does it say you may not ordain women. But because Jesus only called men, the church has leaned into this tradition that you can only call men. It hasn’t leaned into a tradition that you can only call Jewish men because all the men that Jesus called were Jewish. They just picked that one thing.”
Polls have revealed a majority of Catholics in America are in favour of women being ordained as priests. Currently, there are as many as 200 women priests across the world, with more than 150 of them living in the United States alone.
Photo Credits: Bridget Mary's Blog
