{"id":3011,"date":"2008-08-11T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination.html"},"modified":"2008-08-11T14:31:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T14:31:00","slug":"priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination.html","title":{"rendered":"Priest concelebrates, delivers homily at woman’s ordination"},"content":{"rendered":"

A deacon friend sent me this startling story<\/a>, about a priest who took part in a ceremony ordaining a woman — and even delivered the homily:<\/p>\n

<\/a>Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, long associated with the cause of Christian non-violence and attempts to close the international school for military training at Fort Benning, Ga., today staked his conscience to a different cause: the ordination of women in the Catholic church.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois was a concelebrant and homilist at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a longtime peace activist and advocate of women\u2019s ordination. The ordination occurred Aug. 9 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, Ky.<\/p>\n

In an interview Aug. 7, two days before the ordination, Bourgeois told NCR that he had thought long and hard about participating after receiving an invitation to the ceremony. \u201cI consulted a lot of friends, I\u2019ve done a lot of discernment, spoken with a lot of women friends. I felt in conscience — this matter of conscience keeps coming up and I don\u2019t know what other word to use — if I didn\u2019t attend her ordination, I would have to stop addressing this issue as I do\u201d in speaking engagements at parishes and other Catholic venues around the country.<\/p>\n

Though Bourgeois is best known for leading a movement to oppose the training of foreign troops at what once was known as the School of the Americas, he has also long maintained, as a matter of conscience, that women should be ordained. The SOA watch annually draws tens of thousands to Ft. Benning in November for a weekend of teach-ins and demonstrations. The school\u2019s official name was changed in 2001 to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.<\/p>\n

When questioned, Bourgeois said he knew there could be \u201cserious implications\u201d if he openly participated in a women\u2019s ordination ceremony. While other priests may have attended other women\u2019s ordination ceremonies incognito, a spokesperson for the Women\u2019s Ordination Conference said Bourgeois was the only active male priest to openly participate in such an event.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it seems very right,\u201d he said in the interview. \u201cI would have a problem sleeping at night in the future if I didn\u2019t put my body where my words are.\u201d<\/p>\n

In considering the implications, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t know how I could continue to be silent in the church, this is such a big issue for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years and listening to women friends \u2013 if one listens, just shuts up and listens to their stories, their faith journey and, in some cases, their call by God to ordination to the priesthood in the Catholic church \u2013 there is a problem for us guys in the church. What are we saying? God is calling us but not you? This is heresy. We\u2019re tampering with the sacred here.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also speaks about exclusion of women from ordination as discrimination. \u201cWe cannot justify discrimination no matter how hard the bishops may try. In the end, it is wrong. It is a sin. That\u2019s how I see it and that\u2019s why I am going to be there Saturday.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are more details at the NCR link<\/a>, along with his homily<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what backlash, if any, he receives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A deacon friend sent me this startling story, about a priest who took part in a ceremony ordaining a woman — and even delivered the homily: Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, long associated with the cause of Christian non-violence and attempts to close the international school for military training at Fort Benning, Ga., today staked his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nPriest concelebrates, delivers homily at woman's ordination - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Priest concelebrates, delivers homily at woman's ordination - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A deacon friend sent me this startling story, about a priest who took part in a ceremony ordaining a woman — and even delivered the homily: Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, long associated with the cause of Christian non-violence and attempts to close the international school for military training at Fort Benning, Ga., today staked his…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-11T14:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SKCHuTDACWI\/AAAAAAAACv0\/BN06rGAjONM\/s320\/bourgeois080908%5B1%5D.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Priest concelebrates, delivers homily at woman's ordination - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/priest-concelebrates-delivers-homily-at-womans-ordination.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Priest concelebrates, delivers homily at woman's ordination - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"A deacon friend sent me this startling story, about a priest who took part in a ceremony ordaining a woman — and even delivered the homily: Maryknoll Fr. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}