Confirmation by a woman Bishop and Priest in Iowa

http://www.cbs2iowa.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/kgan_vid_12433.shtml

Teens are confirmed by a Women Bishop and Priest in Iowa

Comment:  The community of Roman Catholic Women Priests is growing quickly.  We have two groups.  RCWP-USA and our Association.  We are the same group, but differ in styles of governance.  RCWP-USA have had their first confirmation of two teen age girls and this story is well done explaining the differences between the approach women are taking within the tradition and the approach of the present hierarchy.

The article goes on to say..."other key differences include: Roman Catholic Women Priests accept the LGBTQ community, and welcome anyone to take communion. "

And from the Confirmandi themselves....

"It is a very inclusive church and I like actually being able to have my input in the church," said Abigail Grothe, church member.

"I feel like it's a lot warmer to everybody," said Cora Bern-King, church member.

 

Congratulations Mary Kay Kushner and your community. dd

http://www.kwwl.com/story/19380884/first-confirmation

Mark Your Calendars

THE ASSOCIATION OF

ROMAN CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS arcwp.org

JOYFULLY INVITES YOU TO

THE LITURGY OF ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD

Diane Dougherty (Newman, GA)

AND THE

ORDINATION TO THE DIACONATE

Barbara Anne Duff(Macon,GA)

                Debra Myers  (Batavia, OH)                         

Joleane Presley (Manassas, VA)

Rosemarie Smead (Bedford, KY)

  Irene Scaramazza (Columbus, OH)

 

Ordaining Bishop

                                                              

      Bridget Mary Meehan

Saturday

October 20, 2012

1:00  PM

First Metropolitan Community Church

1379 Tullie Road

Atlanta, GA 3032

 

Dinner to follow at Colonnade                                                                                                           

Reservations for dinner by October 17,                                                                                                             

Contact: barbara.duff@cox.net

Tea Partier picks a fight with a foreign president

Comment:
Very entertaining.....I love this lineI believe America should have a social floor below which people wouldn't fall and that people deserve basic protections of fundamental health care.....

http://www.upworthy.com/a-tea-partier-decided-to-pick-a-fight-with-a-foreign-president-it-didnt-go-so-we

Dear Todd Akin....

C omment:  Every woman and man should read this article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/todd-akin-rape_b_1812930.html

Dear Todd Akin,
I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.
I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.
Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.
As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking "off the cuff."
Clarification. You didn't make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.
You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.
When you, Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow co-sponsors play with words around rape suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible, it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.
Now you want to say that you misspoke when you said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evilcontent? Or, were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us? It would seem you were saying that getting pregnant after a rape would indicate it was not a "legitimate" rape.
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space. Imagine being tied up there and imagine some aggressive, indifferent, insane stranger friend or relative ripping off your clothes and entering your body -- the most personal, sacred, private part of your body -- and violently, hatefully forcing themself into you so that you are ripped apart. Then imagine that stranger's sperm shooting into you and filling you and you can't get it out. It is growing something in you. Imagine you have no idea what that life will even consist of, spiritually made in hate, not knowing the mental or health background of the rapist.
Then imagine a person comes along, a person who has never had that experience of rape, and that person tells you, you have no choice but to keep that product of rape growing in you against your will and when it is born it has the face of your rapist, the face of the person who has essentially destroyed your being and you will have to look at the face every day of your life and you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.
I don't know if you can imagine any of this (leadership actually requires this kind of compassion), but if you are willing to go to the depth of this darkness, you will quickly understand that there is NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE to have or not have the baby, but the person carrying that baby herself.
I have spent much time with mothers who have given birth to children who are the product of rape. I have watched how tortured they are wrestling with their hate and anger, trying not to project that onto their child.
I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.
Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.
And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.
#ReasonToRise

Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo

7 Ways #FreePussyRiot and #NunsOnTheBus Are Alike

Comment: Everyone should take time to read and reread this article,carefully.  First read through it.  Then go back and click on the references.  This it an excellent presentation of the global issues presented to women in the 21st century....and who would think a rock band like Pussy Riot would headline with Nuns on the Bus.....I love it and thankSoyra Chemaly-she GOT it!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/7-ways-free-pussy-riot-and-nuns-on-the-bus-are-alike_b_1755752.html

US nuns under Vatican rebuke will continue talks

"I think what we want is to finally, at some end stage of the process, to be recognized and understood as equal in the church, that our form of religious life can be respected and affirmed," Farrell said Friday.......They  can crush a few flowers, but can't hold back the Springtime..."
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/us-nuns-under-vatican-1495755.html

Comment: Well written Associated Press....

Response to Vatican:LCWR will continue dialogue, but not compromise its mission

8 Highlights from the article:

http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/lcwr-will-continue-dialogue-not-compromise-mission
....it would continue discussions with church officials regarding a Vatican-ordered takeover, but “will reconsider” if it “is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”....

The LCWR expect “open and honest dialogue” with Sartian that “may lead not only to increasing understanding between the church leadership and women religious, but also to creating more possibilities for the laity and, particularly for women, to have a voice in the church,”

“Religious life, as it is lived by the women religious who compromise LCWR, is an authentic expression of this life that must not be compromised,” it said.

“The assembly instructed the LCWR officers to conduct their conversation with Archbishop Sartain from a stance of deep prayer that values mutual respect, careful listening and open dialogue,” the statement said. “The officers will proceed with these discussions as long as possible, but will reconsider if LCWR is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”

LCWR members, the statement reads, recognize that many lay people had urged the group to help “reconcile the differences that exist within the Catholic church” and create “spaces for honest and open conversation on the critical moral and ethical questions that face the global community.”

LCWR’s members also urged their officers “not to allow the work with CDF to absorb the time, energy and resources of the conference nor to let it distract the conference from the work its mission requires,” reads the statement.

“Our starting point will be about our own life and about our understanding of religious life,” Farrell continued. “And the documents, in our view, misrepresent that.”

“But there is change over and that really speaks to who we are and how we share leadership,” Farrell continued. “It really speaks to who we are.”

Breaking News: LCWR president to sisters:"Be fearless on Vatican mandate

LCWR president to sisters: Be 'fearless' on Vatican mandate

Aug. 10, 2012

By Joshua J. McElwee

Dominican Sister Mary Hughes, past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, left, Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, LCWR president, and Franciscan Sister Florence Deacon, president-elect, Aug. 9 in St. Louis. (CNS photo/Sid Hastings)

ST. LOUIS -- Hours before the U.S. Catholic sisters meeting here were expected to decide how to respond to the Vatican’s harsh rebuke of their leadership organization, its president told them to be “truthful, but gentle and absolutely fearless.”

Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell spoke Friday morning at the annual meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents some 80 percent of 57,000 Catholic sisters in the U.S.

As LCWR’s president, Farrell has been chiefly responsible for handling the Vatican’s rebuke, which came in April 18 mandate ordering the group to revise and place itself under the control of three U.S. bishops.

Taking the stage to a standing ovation, Farrell said that “some larger movement in the church … has landed on LCWR.”

A key question facing LCWR, she said, is “What would a prophetic response to the doctrinal assessment look like?”

“I think it would be humble, but not submissive,” she continued. “Rooted in a solid sense of ourselves, but not self-righteous; truthful, but gentle and absolutely fearless.

“It would ask probing questions. Are we being invited to some appropriate pruning and are we open to it? Is this doctrinal process an expression of concern or an attempt to control?

“Concern is based in love and invites unity. Control through fear and intimidation would be an abuse of power.

“Does the institutional legitimacy of canonical recognition empower us to live prophetically? Does it allow us the freedom to question with informed consciences? Does it really welcome feedback in a church that claims to honor the sensus fildeum?”

Farrell also said that it would be a “mistake” to make “too much” of the mandate.

“We cannot allow it to consume us,” she said. “It is not the first time that a form of religious life has collided with the church, nor will it be the last.”

“The doctrinal assessment suggests that we are not currently living in an ideal ecclesial world,” Farrell continued.

Yet, she said, the sisters also “cannot make too little” of the Vatican’s move. It’s “historical impact,” she said, is “apparent to all of us.”

Ending her remarks with a reflection on the Gospel parable of the mustard seed, Farrell showed an image of mustard plants growing in a field, saying the seed is “uncontainable” and “crops up anywhere without permission.”

Comparing the seed to the spirit of God, she continued: “We can indeed live in joyful hope because there is no political or ecclesiastical herbicide that can wipe out the newness of God’s spirit.”

Ending with a Spanish phrase she said she learned while ministering in Chile during the military dictatorship there, Farrell said: “They can crush a few flowers, but they cannot hold back the springtime.”

As Farrell left the stage, the audience of about 900 stood slowly, clapping for some three minutes and shouting in affirmation.

Before Farrell’s address, LCWR announced that St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn had been elected Thursday as the group’s new president-elect.

In LCWR's model, three sisters, a president, president-elect, and past-president govern the group collaboratively with the group's secretary, treasurer and executive director.

The group's membership chooses a president-elect at each year's assembly. Following a year in the position, she automatically succeeds to the presidency, and then to the position of past-president the following year.

During a formal ceremony set for Friday afternoon, Farrell will move to the position of past president, while Franciscan Sr. Florence Deacon, currently LCWR's president-elect, will become its president.

Zinn, who serves on the leadership team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, Penn., previously served as the representative of the international Congregation of St. Joseph Sisters at the UN, which enjoys consultative status as a non-governmental organization there.

[Joshua J. McElwee is an NCR staff writer. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org]

I Am a Dangerous Woman-Are you?

Comment:  This poem was sent to Sr. Mary Lou Kolwolski before the LCWR Conference....Ar you a Dangerous woman?  Taken from Sister Mary Kay Kolwaski.....


Dangerous Women Creed
by Lynne Hybels
Dear God, please make us dangerous women.
May we be women who acknowledge our power to change, and grow,
and be radically alive for God.
May we be healers of wounds and righters of wrongs.
May we weep with those who weep and speak for those who cannot
speak for themselves.
May we cherish children, embrace the elderly, and empower the poor.
May we pray deeply and teach wisely.
May we be strong and gentle leaders.
May we sing songs of joy and talk down fear.
May we never hesitate to let passion push us, conviction compel us,
and righteous anger energize us.
May we strike fear into all that is unjust and evil in the world.
May we dismantle abusive systems and silence lies with truth.
May we shine like stars in a darkened generation.
May we overflow with goodness in the name of God and by the power of Jesus.
And in that name and by that power, may we change the world.
Dear God, please make us dangerous women. Amen.