Quotations
“Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman.”
John Chrysostom, c. 400, “golden-mouthed” preacher and doctor of the church
“Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You should always go in mourning and in rags.” Tertullian 22CE
“Divine law has excluded women from the ministry . . . but they endeavor to force their way into it.” John Chrysostom, c. 400
“All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of women. . . . They are feebler both in mind and body. . . . She is more carnal than men.” Malleus Maleficarum “Hammer of the Witches” 1486
“The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, our Church and our loving God who calls both men and women to be priests. When there is an injustice, silence is the voice of complicity.
My conscience compelled me to break my silence and address the sin of sexism in my Church.” Roy Bourgeois, activist forced out of Maryknoll by the Vatican for openly supporting women priests
“I see us as the living Christ. We are the resurrection.” Paul Lipetzky, CPA (deceased) whose expertise put Mary Magdalene, First Apostle on firm legal and financial footing
“All the world religions agree that the acid test of any theology, any spirituality, is that it leads the faithful to the practice of compassion and to the recognition of the sacred in others.
A theology that has led to the denigration, exploitation, and oppression of half the human race for so long cannot pass this test.” Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God, The Gospel According to Women, and more books
“Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God’s call to women is not?” Roy Bourgeois
“We offer a sanctuary of love where Spirit is trusted to speak in and through each person.” Bernie Sykora, co-pastor of Mary Magdalene, First Apostle
“The Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement is necessary because, if we wait, nothing is going to happen for a very, very, very long time — if ever,” Mary Frances Smith, co-pastor of Mary Magdalene, First Apostle
“If God is male, then male is God.” Theologian Mary Daly
“We are married, single. Many of us work in other professions, and we bring those life skills to our role as priests. And some would say we bring some of those feminine qualities to the priesthood, perhaps some more nurturing qualities.” Mary Frances Smith
“May God smile/ May SHE bless you.”
Sister Lucy Edelbeck, OP., creator of greeting cards
“. . . the archaeological evidence shows women as receiving ordination and exercising ministry on a par with men, . . .” Dorothy Irvin, archaeologist and theologian
“Many think “Father” is a nice image. But then, why not mix it with ‘Mother’?” Jeanette Blonigen Clancy, author of God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky: Cherishing Christianity without Its Exclusive Claims
“We’re not doing this to be negative about Catholicism. We love this church, and that’s the reason we’re staying.” Regina Nicolosi, Bishop of RCWP Midwest
“We learnt, in the apartheid years, that sometimes the best or even the only possible way to change an unjust law is to break it.” Bp. Patricia Fresen of South Africa
“I feel that if all I ever, ever do is plant a seed, expose people to the view of a woman at the altar, then in a way that’s almost enough.”
Mary Francis Smith
“To accept each other with all of our differences might be the greatest sacrifice we are asked to give.” Bernie Sykora
“We believe there are laws that are unjust and they need to be broken because they are not in accordance with the teaching of equality and love that Jesus preached and died for.” Bp. Regina Nicolosi
“My pain at having been kicked out of the priesthood has allowed me to glimpse the exclusion and discrimination that people of color, women, and gay people in our Church have experienced for centuries.” Roy Bourgeois
“The testimony of women priests represents a paradigm shift—a transformation of the imagination. It demands an intellectual conversion that allows the student to see “old data” in a completely new perspective.” Mary Ann Rossi, scholar and activist
“Theodora wears an episcopal cross attesting to her service as bishop.”
Dorothy Irvin
“Pope Francis recognizes the illness of clerical culture. Would that he could see the obvious solution for the kind of ministry he desires—ordain women!”
Jeanette Blonigen Clancy
“The basic assumption of clericalism is that the people have no direct access to the divine.”
(Sexism and God-talk)Rosemary Radford Ruether, scholar, theologian, Emerita Professor, author of scores of books and articles
“Clericalism has expropriated the people’s collective participation in ministry, word, and sacrament. . . . Re-appropriation of the sacraments . . . arises from the community’s collective experience of its life in grace.”
Rosemary Radford Ruether in Sexism and God-talk
“As a young adult, I tried to ask questions of the male clergy, which were the only clergy we had, and they seemed uncomfortable answering my questions, and I went away in kind of a disappointment for a number of years.” Mary Francis Smith
“It’s my hope that one day women will be given rights in the Catholic Church equal to those of the male population,” Bernie Sykora
“The basic assumption of clericalism is that people have no direct access to the divine”
Rosemary Radford Ruether (Sexism and God-talk)
“Both racism and sexism give all power and privilege to one group of people to the exclusion of the other group. Both racism and sexism are horrendous systems of injustice.” Bp. Patricia Fresen
“The blindness of historiographers to any suggestion that a woman was officiating at the altar leads us to suspect that certain “blinders” must be screening the clues and texts.”
Mary Ann Rossi, Ph.D.
“Clericalism has expropriated the people’s collective participation in ministry, word, and sacrament. . . . Re-appropriation of the sacraments . . . arises from the community’s collective experience of its life in grace.”
Rosemary Radford Ruether in Sexism and God-talk
“Would Christianity have developed differently if Mary Magdalene would have remained in the prominent position into which Jesus obviously placed her?” Bp. Regina Nicolosi
“The Christian “Lord” and the ubiquitous drumbeat of “HeHimHis” promote male domination, therefore gender abuse.” Jeanette Blonigen Clancy
“Unfortunately, women’s stories in history were not written down and passed on like the stories men wrote. That is why we have to re-imagine, reconstruct a history where women have equality.” Bp. Regina Nicolosi
God our Mother knows our needs. We are hidden in the secrecy of Her protection. She surrounds us constantly with Her love, Her wisdom and Her mercy. When troubles assail us, we turn to Holy Mother God.
“If this sounds wrong, it shows the conditioning of sexist God-talk.”
Jeanette Blonigen Clancy
“WOMAN said, “This is my body. This is my blood.’”
Sister Lucy Edelbeck, OP.
“Like Mary Magdalene, we proclaim through our lives and celebrate in our worship that we have seen the Christ.” Jan Stanley, leader of Mary Magdalene, First Apostle
‘Whenever you try to pray and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to get lost.”
Shug in The Color Purple by Alice Walker
“God ain’t a he or a she, but a It.”
Shug in The Color Purple by Alice Walker