{"id":5233,"date":"2010-11-15T06:15:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T06:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html"},"modified":"2010-11-15T06:15:30","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T06:15:30","slug":"georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has echoes of the story<\/a> I posted recently from Chicago.<\/p>\n

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: <\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"deacondiane_1114_00_750142c.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Diane Dougherty lives in a neat, white house that she shares with her cats, Pete and Gypsy Rose. She teaches second grade in Fayetteville. She smiles a lot, her eyes flashing with intellect.<\/p>\n

A public school teacher in Fayetteville, Diane Dougherty of Newnan had previously been a nun and taught in Catholic school classrooms.<\/p>\n

She hardly looks like someone flouting centuries of tradition, challenging the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Dougherty, 65, wants to be a deacon. But in the Catholic Church, the position of deacon — like that of priest and bishop — is held by men only.<\/p>\n

The Newnan resident is in the forefront of a movement that seeks to change all that. In ordination ceremonies in the United States and across the world, nearly 200 Catholic women have declared themselves deacons, priests and bishops. A male priest whose support of ordaining women drew a rebuke from the Vatican calls the issue “unstoppable.”<\/p>\n

The Vatican remains opposed to the ordination of women, calling it a “grave crime.” Church officials say women are highly valued and stress female equality in all areas of life. The example the church follows, officials say, was set by Jesus.<\/p>\n

If she declares herself a deacon, Dougherty is nearly guaranteed to be excommunicated — removed from the faith she’s embraced since childhood.<\/p>\n

Excommunication is not too high a price to pay, Dougherty said. She thinks the Catholic Church is behind the times.<\/p>\n

“I want to give the next generation a vision” of the roles women could have in the church, Dougherty said. “Forbidding [positions of authority to women] is sexism, and sexism is evil.”<\/p>\n

The Archdiocese of Atlanta, overseeing nearly 1 million Catholics, doesn’t agree.<\/p>\n

Deacon “is a uniquely male role,” said the Rev. Theodore Book, the archdiocese’s director of the Office For Worship. Jesus’ 12 disciples, the original deacons, he noted, were men.<\/p>\n

“It’s something Jesus Christ gave to the church.”<\/p>\n

Dougherty politely disagrees. “Jesus,” she said, “didn’t ordain anyone.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on. <\/a><\/p>\n

On a hunch, I’d say that in the end, the only thing Ms. Dougherty is going to get out of all this is attention.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This has echoes of the story I posted recently from Chicago. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Diane Dougherty lives in a neat, white house that she shares with her cats, Pete and Gypsy Rose. She teaches second grade in Fayetteville. She smiles a lot, her eyes flashing with intellect. A public school teacher in Fayetteville,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deacons"],"yoast_head":"\nGeorgia woman seeks to become deacon - 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\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This has echoes of the story I posted recently from Chicago. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Diane Dougherty lives in a neat, white house that she shares with her cats, Pete and Gypsy Rose. She teaches second grade in Fayetteville. She smiles a lot, her eyes flashing with intellect. A public school teacher in Fayetteville,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-15T06:15:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/deacondiane_1114_00_750142c-thumb-250x140-19324.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon - 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\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"This has echoes of the story I posted recently from Chicago. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Diane Dougherty lives in a neat, white house that she shares with her cats, Pete and Gypsy Rose. She teaches second grade in Fayetteville. She smiles a lot, her eyes flashing with intellect. A public school teacher in Fayetteville,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2010-11-15T06:15:30+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/deacondiane_1114_00_750142c-thumb-250x140-19324.jpg"}],"author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html","name":"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/deacondiane_1114_00_750142c-thumb-250x140-19324.jpg","datePublished":"2010-11-15T06:15:30+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-15T06:15:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/deacondiane_1114_00_750142c-thumb-250x140-19324.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/11\/deacondiane_1114_00_750142c-thumb-250x140-19324.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/georgia-woman-seeks-to-become-deacon.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Georgia woman seeks to become deacon"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5233","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}