WOMEN ORDAINED, DEFYING VATICAN

September 17, 2006 Sunday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum

At 11, Kathleen Stack Kunster felt a strong pull to the priesthood. When the 61-year-old Emeryville, Calif., woman was finally ordained July 31 in a riverboat ceremony in Pennsylvania, she cried for an hour and a half.

``It was extremely powerful -- amazing,'' said Kunster, who has a master's degree in divinity and a doctorate in psychology. ``I've been wrestling with this for a long time. It feels relentless, the knowledge the person is not doing what they're supposed to do, so nothing else fits. It can be painful.''

Since then, Kunster has undergone a transformation of sorts. Everything clicks. A self-described introvert, she finds herself much more approachable.

``It's like I've come into my own,'' she said.

Kunster is part of a ripple of women who have decided to stop waiting for the Vatican to ordain female priests and go it on their own. Twelve women joined the priesthood with her last month.

In ceremonies held around the world, women bishops, themselves ordained by supportive male bishops are anointing women into the priesthood. The male bishops have remained anonymous for fear of retribution by the church.

The women say their training is as rigorous as that for male candidates, and omits only conversations with the diocese, which does not recognize them.

The ceremonies have taken place on waterways -- the Danube, the Ohio River, the St. Lawrence Waterway -- because water carries profound symbolism in the Christian faith and they cannot go through the ritual in a Catholic church.

``I have been called for a very long time and I am not going to wait any longer,'' said Victoria Rue, who, as a child, stood on the steps of her front porch to dispense Necco Wafers in a communion re-enactment with the children of the neighborhood.

Rue, who holds a doctorate in theology, now teaches at San Jose State University and conducts services for the school community with Kunster and Don Cordero, a Jesuit priest who was excommunicated after marrying.

The Catholic Church has not permitted women to be ordained since the 13th century. In a 1994 papal letter, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the rule. The church ``has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful.''

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, has sent to the Vatican the name of at least one woman who has joined the priesthood.

``From the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, they are not considered to be valid ordinations,'' said the Rev. Mark Weiser, spokesman for the Oakland (Calif.) Diocese. ``It's important for people to know that any sacraments that one of these women perform, we would not recognize.'' Such sacraments include marriage, baptisms or last rites.

But some scholars say they have found evidence that ordained women routinely performed sacraments up until the 1200s. These scholars include former priest John Wijngaards, who has dedicated himself to helping women enter the priesthood.

``Women seem to have been ordained as priests in some regions,'' he said. ``However, it was commonplace during the first nine centuries for women to be ordained deacons, especially in the Eastern part of the church. Since this ordination was a truly sacramental ordination, women were therefore admitted to holy orders.''

With a shortage of priests in the U.S., couldn't the church benefit from women priests?

``I know there is plenty of work and not enough priests to do it,'' Weiser said. But, he said, the shortage has fired up plenty of parishioners with skills to donate their time to the church doing administrative tasks, freeing priests for other duties.

Some may wonder why the women fight so hard to belong to a church that does not want them in its highest ranks.

``That's an excellent question, and a lot of women waiting have become ordained in other faiths,'' largely Episcopal, said Sharon Danner, spokeswoman for the Women's Ordination Conference, a support organization based in Virginia. ``That's a very common thing. Their faith is so important to them. They won't give up hope.''

Rue says her point isn't just to break into the priesthood, but to recraft the church as less hierarchical and more inclusive.

``I do not want to be part of a club that is exclusive,'' she said. ``We are very, very concerned about returning the church to the way it was when Jesus founded it, with all people welcome at the table.''