Womenpriests: radical change or more of the same?(Essay)

This article is a critical examination of the Roman Catholic womenpriest movement in the United States. For the article, Moon conducted telephone interviews in 2006 with seven ordained womenpriests and two ordained womendeacons in order to engage in listening to these women share their spiritual journeys. She first describes the movement through the womenpriests' conversations and narratives. Then, she offers an analysis of the movement as well as an interpretation of the issues, and looks at whether the womenpriest movement can truly dismantle kyriarchy as it purports to do. Here, Moon provides a critical analysis of two key issues within the womenpriest movement that she has identified as problematic: (1) the issue of the tradition of apostolic succession, and (2) the issue of essentialism of women in the womenpriest movement. Finally, she puts forth proposals for future reflection and action in the way of queer theology.

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This article is a critical examination of the Roman Catholic Womenpriest (RCWP) movement here in the United States. (1) As an Asian American Catholic feminist, I was initially intrigued by womenpriests' struggle within the Catholic Church. I have resonated with Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's statement that "to move out of the church rather than continue the struggle within it would mean giving up our birthright and abandoning our people who are Catholic wo/men." (2) Many womenpriests with whom I spoke mentioned the initial influence of liberation theology in their decision not to "leave" the church. (3) Feminist liberation theologians have gone one step beyond their male liberation theologian counterparts and have acted upon their concrete proposals for transforming the structural sins of patriarchy within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, resulting in actions such as the women-church movement. (4) The members of the RCWP movement whom I interviewed attempt to follow the methods of feminist liberation thealogians in their engagement of theological reflection regarding the oppression of women and other marginalized people in the Roman Catholic Church.

For this article, I conducted telephone interviews in 2006 with seven ordained womenpriests and two ordained womendeacons. My purpose was to listen to these women share their spiritual journeys and to have them speak about issues they felt were significant to them regarding their movement. By presenting these conversations here, I provide an analysis and critique of the movement. My conversations with womenpriests constitute subaltern discourses of resistance to the larger structures of kyriarchal oppression in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. The RCWP movement is one paradigm of those who have been marginalized throughout the centuries and have been disappointed by the aftermath of Vatican II. Hence they have initiated radical change that seeks to set up a new model for priesthood. The narratives I have collected are, in a sense, testimonials to the prophetic power of those who find strength and courage in confronting and challenging structural injustices by seeking to move from the margins into the hierarchical center.

In what follows, I describe the movement through the conversations and narratives of the few womenpriests whom I interviewed. (5) Then I analyze the movement and interpret the issues, and look at whether the womenpriest movement can truly dismantle kyriarchal church structures as it purports to do. (6) Here, I critically examine its need to legitimize the movement by following the tradition of apostolic succession, as well as query womenpriests' tendency to reify existing gender dualisms. Finally, I offer some proposals for future reflection and action by briefly looking at queer theology.

Description of the Roman Catholic Womenpriest Movement

The movement for women's ordination in the Roman Catholic Church has been part of a larger struggle of the second-wave feminist movement in working toward eradicating sexism and the oppression of women. Secular feminist activists benefited from collaboration with civil rights activists of the sixties. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 resulted from the shared endeavor of both civil rights and women's rights activists. In concert with the work of feminist activists in the sixties was the growth of women's studies and women's history in academia, which cultivated the link between activism and academics. At that time, feminist academics underscored the importance of incorporating a political agenda as well as the production of theory into the framework of women's studies and women's history. (7)