The Apostles’ Teaching and Fellowship

Liz and I went to Philadelphia this past weekend to attend a Gala Celebration honoring Leonard Swidler. The Gala celebrated Leonard Swidler’s 80th birthday, the 45th Anniversary of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and the establishment of the Leonard and Arlene Swidler Chair in Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University.

In 1977 Leonard and Arlene Swidler edited a book entitled Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary of the Vaitican Declaration (referring to Inter Insigniores, the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the question of the admission of women to the ministerial priesthood. -15 October 1976.) The text of this book is available at the Women Priests Internet Library.

While the Swidler gala was getting underway at Temple University, two Catholic women were being ordained a few miles away– one to the diaconate and one to the priesthood. I heard from a friend that several people who might otherwise have been at the gala were attending the ordinations. The ordination was under the auspices of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an international movement of Roman Catholic women and men who support the ordination of women and since 2002 have been ordaining women and some men to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. [NOTE: the Women Priests Internet Library is separate from Roman Catholic Womenpriests.]

In looking up information on Roman Catholic Womanpriests, I discovered that last week four Catholic women were consecrated bishop, and now there are five Catholic womanbishops in the United States alongside three in Europe.

UPDATE 10 hours later: His eminence, Jonathan the MadPriest, has picked up the story. Sadly, his focus is on the spin put out by the RC hierarchy.