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Kathleen Ruth Ryan Ordained to the Priesthood

6/29/2015

 
Saturday, June 27, 2015: Homily by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
Introduction
Today we rejoice because the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests is ordaining Kathleen Ruth Ryan as a priest and  Edmund John, Kim Panero, and Phoebe Joan as deacons in Albany, New York. Like the mystics, prophets and rebels in our spiritual tradition, these ordinands celebrate God’s boundless love and all-embracing presence everywhere and in everything. Continue

Videos of the  Mary Catherine White Ordination

6/25/2015

 
Bridget Mary's Blog has published: ARCWP Videos of Mary Catherine White's Ordination as Priest in New Hampshire  which took place last weekend.

Why ban Contraception?

6/24/2015

 
From National Catholic Reporter: ’Laudato Si' should have lifted the ban on contraception by Jamie Manson 
It's been nearly a week since the much-anticipated release of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment. Since then, the document's many beautiful and challenging elements have been justifiably lauded in both the religious and secular media.

His call to replace fossil fuels is bold, his understanding of overconsumption and scarcity is prophetic, his compassion for the earth and all of its creatures is stunning. I could go on, but so many other commentators and theologians have done the work of parsing and praising the document so well that I will focus on an issue that remains woefully underdeveloped in the encyclical: overpopulation.

I say "woefully" because few people who are as concerned about ecological destruction as Francis is would deny that overpopulation is one of greatest threats to the earth's survival.  continue
Francis - Listen to Jamie Manson.  She's making a lot of sense here.  Overturn the misguided ban on Contraception. Such a move would be highly consistent with your concern for the poor and for the environment.

Francis - Women not suitable to hold "functional roles" in the RCC

6/22/2015

 
From NCR: Francis again rejects women as heads of Vatican offices by Joshua J. McElwee 
TURIN, ITALY Pope Francis has again publicly indicated he is not considering appointing women to leadership positions in the nearly all-male Vatican bureaucracy, saying to do so would be to promote a "functionalism" of women's roles in the Catholic church.  continue reading
Well. There you have it. Without any further explanation to support his discriminatory beliefs, the pope states that women should not hold “functional roles” within the Roman Catholic Church Leadership. Disappointing. This Pope has many good qualities. However, he clings to some outdated and misguided opinions concerning women.  Pope - hear your people - ORDAIN WOMEN

Mary Catherine White Ordained in New Hampshire

6/22/2015

 
From New Hampshire Public Radio: After Weekend Ordination, Gorham Woman Says She Will Assume Role Of A Roman Catholic Priest By Chris Jensen 
A radical event took place Saturday in a most traditional setting: a tiny, white, classic New England church in Shelburne. Mary Catherine White was ordained and now considers herself a Roman Catholic priest.  

….“Jesus treated women as spiritual equals,” said Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), who presided. “It is time for the institutional church to go back to its roots and do the same. continue reading

Gay Marriage’s Moment

6/21/2015

 
From NYT: Gay Marriage’s Moment by Frank Bruni
REMEMBER the AIDS crisis? If you lived in a big American city during its spread, you were witness to constant sorrow and countless examples of gay people treated as second-class citizens.

One was almost certainly this: the steadfast, heartbroken man being shut out of his beloved’s final weeks — not allowed in the hospital room, not welcomed at the grave — because some family members disapproved and no law trumped their bigotry.

This was a recurring story, an infuriating leitmotif, and many gays and our allies remarked and railed that it wouldn’t be happening if committed same-sex relationships got the legal recognition that heterosexual ones did.  continue reading
It is profoundly unfortunate that the Roman Catholic Church has lost so much of it’s moral credibility by fighting AGAINST love and justice.  Catholic Church, when will you provide moral leadership?  Catholic church - ORDAIN WOMEN, Marry Lesbian and Gay Couples.

Dylann Storm Roof shoots nine at Bible Study in Charleston

6/20/2015

 



From the musical South Pacific
You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
as sung by Mandy Patinkin
Lyrics
On YouTube


Cuyahoga County ready for marriage equality

6/18/2015

 
From Cleveland.Com: Cuyahoga County courts set to issue same-sex marriage licenses if Supreme Court strikes down ban
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County's probate courts are ready to go should the U.S. Supreme Court legalize same-sex marriage, according to a news release sent Tuesday.

In the release, court officials said the probate courts, which issues marriage license, "will be ready, willing and able to promptly issue such licenses in accordance with the law."  continue reading

Ramadan begins

6/18/2015

 
We extend love and prayers to our Muslim sisters and brothers as they begin observation of the Holy Month of Ramadan.  This year Ramadan extends from the evening of Wednesday June 17th thru the evening of Friday July 17th.
Picture
"In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" in Islamic calligraphy form.
Image credit: By Frater5 (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

Bishops in the RCC may finally be held accountable

6/10/2015

 
From NYT: Pope Creates Tribunal for Bishop Negligence in Child Sexual Abuse Cases By Elisabetta Povoledo and Laurie Goodstein
ROME — Roman Catholic bishops accused of covering up or failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children by priests will now be subject to judgment and discipline by a new Vatican tribunal, according to a plan approved on Wednesday by Pope Francis.

The decision is a measure that abuse victims have urged for years. The church has judicial procedures for judging priests accused of abuse, but until now bishops accused of negligence or cover-ups were almost never held accountable by the church itself. continue reading
This is good news.  It would have been even better news thirty years ago.

Dr. Walter Brueggeman to speak at Forest Hill Church

6/9/2015

 
Dr. Walter Brueggemann will speak at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church on Sunday June 14. Dr. Brueggemann will teach a 9:30am Bible study class and preach for the 11am worship service. At 2pm, Brueggemann will discuss the Biblical response to the wealth inequality that results in an economy of extraction.

As he explains, both Biblical and present-day economic powers thrive by extracting wealth from the vulnerable and transferring it to a powerful elite. The result is a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many.

According to Brueggemann, the means of such extraction are unfair taxation, debt management, high interest rates, and cheap labor. The Bible speaks against such practices and in favor of restoring economic equity through debt cancellation. Given current U.S. economic policies and practices, this issue is as important today as it was in Biblical times,.

Among the world’s foremost interpreters of the Hebrew Bible, Walter Brueggemann has lectured and preached all over the world. He is the author of over 100 books and articles, including Theology of the Old Testament; Psalms: New Cambridge Bible Commentary with William Bellinger, Sabbath as Resistance; Reality, Grief, Hope; The Prophetic Imagination; and Journey to the Common Good.

Dr. Brueggemann is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theology Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, where he served from 1986 until his retirement in 2003. He is a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature and an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ.

Forest Hill Church Presbyterian
All worship services and events are free and open to the public. More information.
3031 Monticello Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118  Directions and Map.

In Memory of Alta Jacko

6/9/2015

 
We have a message from Joan Houk Bishop for the Great Waters Region of Roman Catholic Womenpriests:
Dear Friends,
Here is a link to the obituary for womanpriest, Alta Jacko, whom I ordained a priest in October 2009.  I leave early in the morning for Chicago to preside at her funeral.  You may read the short obituary and then link on the photo album to see some very nice photos of Alta and her ordinations.  She had been ordained a transitional deacon in Minnesota in 2008 by Bishop Dana Reynolds.
In joy and hope,
+Joan

May 30th Ordination -  Oak Park Illinois

6/3/2015

 
The ordination of the most recent RCWP deacon in the Great Waters Region, Kathy Rolenc. Kathy was ordained on May 30, 2015 at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Oak Park, IL. 
Picture
Click picture for larger image.
Top row: Rev. Elsie McGrath (St. Louis, MO), Susan Mielke (cand., IL), "Catharine Jameson" (cand., IL), Rev. Ann Klonowski (Cleveland, OH), Rev. Mary Grace Crowley-Koch (Chicago, IL)

Bottom row: Rev. Dagmar Celeste (Cleveland, OH), Bishop Joan C. Houk (Pittsburgh, PA), Deacon Kathy Rolenc (Chicago, IL), Rev. Barbara Zeman (Chicago, IL), Rev. Paula Hoeffer (Cincinnati, OH), Rev. Lillian Lewis (Three Oaks, MI)

Women Ordained in May

6/3/2015

 
From Iglesia Descalza: Women's Ordinations - May 2015  provides us with pictures from the Ordinations and some biographical information about the new Priests and Deacons.

It's time for feminine images of God

6/2/2015

 
Our sisters in the Church of England are pushing for gender inclusive language in liturgy...  They have a good shot at making progress.  Rome needs to move forward on this issue as well.

From Women and the Church (WATCH): ‘Let God be a She’ – the national conversation about a God without gender.
Orthodox theology teaches us that all human beings are made in the image of God.

As Rev Jody Stowell put it to The Guardian, "God encompasses gender – he is both male and female and beyond male and female. So when we only speak of God in the male form, that’s actually giving us a deficient understanding of who God is.”  continue
From the Guardian: Let God be a 'she', says Church of England women's group
A group within the Church of England is calling for God to be referred to as female following the selection of the first female bishops.

The group wants the church to recognize the equal status of women by overhauling official liturgy, which is made up almost exclusively of male language and imagery to describe God.  continue


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