RCWP Canada Monthly Review
-- July 2018
- Dancing My Life, Dancing My God
- How would foreign policy change if women held the reins of diplomacy?
- Pope Francis says Jesus changed history by ending women’s second-class status in society
- Binding The Strong Man
- The Law of Three
- Why did Vatican's doctrinal prefect reaffirm 'definitive' teaching on women priests?
- The
tragic attraction of fundamentalism; all religious traditions seem to
favor compliance and stability over enquiry and dissent
- Comments to the Editor
- “I ask no favours for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is to take their feet off our necks.”
- RCWP
Canada prepares to ordain new bishop this month in Calgary
- Government seeks help from Catholic coalition to push papal apology
- No leadership role for women in church, Violet Fahlman, pastoral studies graduate will use her knowledge in her business
- Pope Francis wishes liberation theologian greetings on 90th birthday
- Catholic Women Called - Vikki Marie
- Free pdf
downloadable books
- Francis,
the comic strip
RCWP
Canada prepares to ordain new bishop this month in Calgary
Editor,
RCWP Canada Monthly Review | June 1, 2018
On
July 21, 2018, the eve of the feast of St. Mary of Magdala, Jane
Kryzanowki of Regina will be ordained bishop for RCWP Canada, replacing
Marie Bouclin of Sudbury who is retiring as bishop after serving for
seven years.
Jane Kryzanowski, Regina, SK,
bishop-elect
According
to the bishop-elect, "The
Spirit of God appears to be moving among the people of God, calling
women to be priests." Marie and Jane are among women who have
heard the
call and responded. Small faith communities are coming together asking
for the pastoral services of women. The merging of these two streams --
the call of the Spirit and the call of people -- is gaining momentum
across Canada. Women priests are serving in British Columbia, Alberta,
Saskatchwan, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Jane
Kryzanowski will be the first Roman Catholic Woman Priest to be
ordainerd bishop on Canadian soil.
In
conjuction with the episcopal ordination, the RCWP Canada community
is inviting the public to a presentation by bishops from Canada, the United
States, and Europe on the growth and development of the women's
ordination movement. It will be held Friday evening, July 20, 2018, 7-9
pm, the EEEL Building, 750 Campus Drive NW, University of Calgary. (Use
Parking - Lot 21), Calgary, Alberta.
Marie Bouclin, Sudbury, ON,
retiring bishop
The
ordination itself is by invitation only, but anyone may obtain an
invitation, which will give details of time, place and date, by writing
to the invitation coordinator at rcwpcanada@outlook.com
Government seeks help from Catholic coalition to push papal apology
Deborah Gyapong, Canadian
Catholic News | May 30, 2018
The
Minister
of Indigenous Affairs Canada, has asked the Our Lady of Guadalupe
Circle, a coalition of Catholic groups, to help government efforts to
obtain a papal apology for the Church’s role in residential schools.
“As
an
essential component of healing and reconciliation, the survivors of
Canada’s Indian residential schools and their families deserve an
apology from the Pope on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church,” said
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett in a May
letter co-signed by Senator Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and NDP MP Charlie Angus, who
recently co-sponsored a motion to invite a papal apology that passed
with all-party support in the House of Commons on May 1.
Read
More
No leadership role for women in church, Violet Fahlman, pastoral
studies graduate will use her knowledge in her business
Staff. CBC News | June 7, 2018
Violet
Fahlman would've been eligible to retire about 15 years ago, but
instead she's graduating from the University of Regina's Campion
College with a degree in pastoral studies — at age 80.
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Fahlman
said that when she graduated high school in 1956 women got a job,
married and had kids. That's what she did, building a contracting
company with her husband.
"The
hours were long and the stresses high," Fahlman said to CBC Radio's The
Morning Edition on Wednesday. "My health began to fail and I had no
mental clarity, so that kind of motivated me to look for a healthier
lifestyle."
Though
she wanted to be a nurse when she graduated, Fahlman said it was while
attending her daughter-in-law's convocation that she noticed a student
had earned a degree in pastoral studies.
It
was something that interested her as a long-time volunteer at her
church, so she enrolled in the program in 2014.
"I
felt it would give me a broader and deeper understanding of my faith,"
she said.
Fahlman,
who is Roman Catholic, said she will use the knowledge she gained from
her studies within her current business, rather than use it in the
church.
"I
see that it's still extremely patriarchal and misogynistic. There isn't
really a role for women for leadership in that church," Fahlman said.
Read
More
Pope Francis wishes liberation theologian greetings on 90th birthday
The renowned Peruvian Dominican
priest, philosopher and theologian, regarded as one of the founders of
liberation theology, turned 90 on June 8. Pope Francis sent a letter to
Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez with birthday wishes and assurance of his prayers.
In
the letter dated 28 May, Pope Francis underscored the "theological
service" of Fr. Gutirrez and his "preferential love for the poor and
the discarded of society".
Read
More
Catholic
Women Called - Vikki Marie
Catholic Women Called, Youtube video | May 29, 2018
Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie shares the difficult discernment to leave her
religious community to serve as priest to people who feel left behind.
[Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie is a priest of RCWP Canada, serving Our Lady of Guadalupe Tonantzin Community, Vancouver, BC]
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Judith
Pellerin's Dancing My
Life, Dancing My God uses the metaphor of dance to
describe how life can be lived joyously and with fulfillment.
The concept of dance as prayer, as communication between self and God,
is introduced in an engaging and accepting way for those seeking to
discover deeper meaning in their communion with the Divine.
Balanceing information on the history of dance as Spriit-led
communication with more personal anecdotes of the meaning of dance for
people today, Dancing
My Life, Dancing My God offers a starting place for
discussion and discovery of dancing a Spirit-filled life.
[Judith
Pellerin, Regina, SK. has given permission to serialize her book.
The introduction is this month's installment.]
Read More
How would foreign policy change
if women held the reins of diplomacy?
Chris Herlinger, Global Sisters Report | June 7, 2018
"Women in their struggles know what it means not to be included. Out of
that awareness, we must include everyone for a flourishing of life." We
talked to a number of Catholic sisters with experience at the United
Nations about the values women would bring to the formation of foreign
policy.
Read
More
Pope Francis says Jesus changed
history by ending women’s second-class status in society
Crux Staff, Crux | June 15, 2018
Pope Francis on Friday said women suffer from a throwaway culture, and
Jesus “changed history” by ending women’s second-class status in
society.
Speaking during his morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae - which
featured the Gospel account of Jesus speaking about “committing
adultery in your heart” - Francis said Jesus’s words about women
acknowledged their equality with men, when before they were little more
than “slaves” that did not “even have complete freedom.”
“Jesus’ doctrine about women changes history. Before Jesus the view
about women was one thing but after Jesus they are another,” Francis
said, according to Vatican News, a service of the Vatican’s Secretariat
for Communication.
Read
More
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Binding
The
Strong
Man |
Radical
Discipleship, radicaldiscipleship.net | June 10, 2018
As
we transition into the summer months of Ordinary Time, we are
celebrating the 30th anniversary of Binding The Strong Man,
Ched Myers’ extraordinary political reading of Mark’s Gospel.
Each Sunday, we will post excerpts from Myers’ comments on the
lectionary reading of the day. Today’s passage is Mark
3:20-35, the episode in which the book is named after.
But no
one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without
first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
(Mark 3:27)
Mark has come clean: Jesus (a.k.a. “the stronger one” heralded by John,
1:8) intends to overthrow the reign of the strong man (a.k.a. the
scribal establishment represented by the demon of 1:24). In
this parable the oracle of Second Isaiah lives again: Yahweh is making
good on the promise to liberate the “prey of the strong (LXX,
ischuontos) and rescue the captives of the tyrants” (Is
49:24f). Imperial hermeneutics, ever on the side of law and
order, will of course find this interpretation of the strong man
parable strained, offensive, shocking. Yet Mark drew the
image of breaking and entering from the most enduring of the primitive
Christian eschatological traditions: the Lord’s advent as a thief in
the night (Mt 24:43 par; I Thes 5:2; 2 Pt 3:10; Rev 3:3, 16:15).
[RCWP
Canada Monthly Review will link to this extraordinary commentary on the
Gospel according to Mark -- four installments at a time.]
Read More
The Law of Three -- Conflict Resolution
Richard
Rohr,
Center for Action and Contemplation
| June 5, 2018
Cynthia Bourgeault, a faculty member at the Center for Action and
Contemplation, explores the profound metaphysical Law of Three.
Understanding and consciously participating in this principle can help
us welcome new, surprising resolutions that free us from our usual
binary and oppositional way of operating in every arena of life from
personal relationships to politics.
Cynthia explains the foundational principles of the Law of Three:
- In
every new arising there are three forces involved: affirming, denying, and
reconciling.
- The
interweaving of the three produces a fourth in a new dimension.
- Affirming,
denying, and reconciling are not fixed points or permanent essence
attributes, but can and do shift and must be discerned situationally.
- Solutions
to impasses or sticking points generally come by learning how to spot
and mediate third force, which is present in every situation but
generally hidden.
Read
More
Why did Vatican's doctrinal
prefect reaffirm 'definitive' teaching on women priests?
According to
the doctrinal prefect, himself, Archbishop (soon to be
Cardinal) Luis Ladaria, essentially saying, "Because we said so,
exactly 10 years ago." But in his own words: "Sowing these
doubts creates serious confusion among the faithful . . . "
Read
More
According to
British theologian John Wijngaards, "Yes, there is
confusion among the faithful, but not because they doubt the validity
of their inner sense of what is genuinely Christian and Catholic, but
because the persons who are supposed to guide them keep ignoring their
just concerns."
"Confusion is healthy if it leads to a process of honest reassessment,"
added Wijngaards, professor emeritus of Missionary Institute London and
founder of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research.
Read
More
According to
Bridgid Mary Meehan, Bishop of Association of Roman
Catholic Women Priests, "Why [bring this up] now, 10 years later?"
Meehan asked NCR. "What's up with that? Maybe they want us to issue a
progress report."
Tell them, she said, "Yes, we keep growing and flourishing."
According to
Marie Bouclin, Bishop of Roman Catholic Women Priests
Canada, the point has often been made, and here it is again, that the
Vatican always restates the "circular argument from authority" - -
"This is so because we say so and we say so because it has always been
so." - - ignoring research and historical evidence to the
contrary.
It's interesting that the Vatican never addresses the five Rahnerian
arguments about what is to be "definitely held" by all the faithful. It
is very frustrating that the sensus fidelium is never taken into
account, nor the opinion of even the (male) bishops of the world, nor
Catholic theologians (unless they toe the party line), nor the Holy
Spirit.
We sojourn on in spite of them and pray to be obedient to God rather
than these men.
According to
Christine Schenk, a Sister of St. Joseph, Jesus founded a
movement led by both women and men. Vatican statements on
women priests are invariably ahistorical and biblically naive. It is
embarrassing.
Worse, they bear false witness to the Jesus of history and are
ultimately destructive to the body of Christ. As a contribution to the
ongoing conversation about women's roles in our church, here are a few
examples from mainstream scholarship about Jesus and the female
exercise of authority in early Christianity.
Read
More
According to
Anthony Ruff, OSB, Editor of Pray Tell Blog, "Did Ladaria
think the restatement was needed as a reassurance now because the
Vatican commission on women deacons will be issuing a positive report?
Read
More
According to
Kate McElwee, Executive Director, Women's Ordination
Conference, while the Vatican hierarchy continues to insist on closed
doors and exclusionary policies, Catholic women and women priests are
working for justice, serving the needs of the people of God, and making
a positive impact on the world.
Recently, Pope Benedict's top aide, Archbishop Georg Gänswein was
quoted saying: "I am of course aware that there is a noisy movement
which has as its main ideological goal the fight for the female
priesthood."
To all the noise-makers and trailblazers: thank you! Congratulations on
being part of the "noisy movement" that follows a path of justice and
conscience.
Read
More
The
tragic attraction of fundamentalism; all religious traditions seem to favor compliance and stability over
enquiry and dissent
Myron Pereira, South Asia Journal | June 6, 2018
"The 21st century will be religious, or it will not be at all," said
the French writer Andre Malraux.For many of us, weary of the atheist
ideologies of fascism and communism, which wrought untold suffering
upon millions during the last century, the return to a public religious
awareness was greeted with a sigh of relief.But this was short-lived.
The death of ideology was followed by the return of religious
fundamentalism — the rigid grip of medieval religious beliefs upon
every aspect of life, a rigidity moreover shared by almost every
religious tradition.
So why religious fundamentalism, and what explains its hold upon so
many of our contemporaries?
Read
More
Thank you for this issue (June, 2018) of the RCWP Canada Monthly Review.
It is a voice for justice and equality in our church.
Patricia
Orban RNDM, Regina, SK
“I ask no favours for my sex. All
I ask of our brethren is to take their feet off our necks.”
Stephan
Boissonneault, vueweekly.com | May 29, 2018
RBG -- The movie
gives Ruth
Bader Ginsburg the spotlight she has earned.
Even though she’s five-foot-nothing and probably weighs about 90
pounds, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of The United States,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a powerful force to be reckoned with. At
85-years-old she still holds the justice title (even though many
officials have told her to retire), and essentially holds up the
liberal backbone of the Supreme Court.
With early beginnings as a professor at Rutgers, teaching a women and
law course, leading the societal shift toward women’s rights in the
1970s, co-founding the Women’s Rights Project with the American Civil
Liberties Union, and rising to mainstream popularity for her famous “I
dissent,” opinions earning her the meme title “Notorious R.B.G,”
Ginsburg has certainly had an interesting life. She’s already in the
history books, yet no medium truly summarizes her journey as well as
the documentary RBG,
which released early this month.
Read
More
July 1st and Fourth of July
"God keep our land glorious and free...In God we trust..." Right? |
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July
2018
