An expelled priest who advocated for women’s ordination speaks his mind.

March 25, 2013

“My Prayer: Let Women Be Priests”
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, 74-year old Roy Bourgeois writes that after having served for four decades as a priest of the Maryknoll Order, his Order received a disturbing letter from the Vatican. Father Bourgeois was told he was being expelled from the priesthood because he had publicly advocated for the ordination of women. Father Bourgeois says, ““Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to women is not?  Isn’t our all-powerful God, who created the cosmos, capable of empowering a woman to be a priest? Let’s face it. The problem is not with God, but with an all-male clerical culture that views women as lesser than men.” His observation can apply to attitudes within much of Protestantism as well.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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