Seeking a Church ‘Revolution’ : Catholic Group Pressures Vatican to Ordain Women

About 200 Roman Catholic women who want to be priests began a three-day conference Thursday to plan a “revolution” that they hope will prompt the Vatican to change its policy.

“The whole structure of the church is based on patriarchy,” said Kathleen Sharkey, St. Louis coordinator of the Women’s Ordination Conference. “What we need is a renewal of the structure.”

And that will not be easy, said Dolly Pomerleau, a national organizer of the conference. There are probably “a million obstacles” in the way of the nuns and laywomen attending the conference, she said, and “the basic one is sexism.”

‘Institution Is Strong’

“The decisions of the Catholic Church are made by men for and to women. The institution is very strong and tough and durable,” she said.

“We are talking about a revolution,” said Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick, another national organizer. “Not a separation, but a revolution within the church.”

According to literature distributed at a news conference Thursday, Pope Paul VI issued a Vatican declaration in 1977 reaffirming the position that women could not be ordained because they are “not in the image of Jesus.”

Since then, Pope John Paul II has said women cannot be ordained because no women were present at the Last Supper, said Lynne Schmidt, another conference organizer.

“The arguments seem to be getting weaker,” Fitzpatrick said.

Group leaders concede that little progress has been made within the church in the decade since the movement began. The first Women’s Ordination Conference was held in Detroit in 1975 and drew 1,500 women, Fitzpatrick said.

Since then, organizers said, the movement has been divided over whether women should become priests in a traditional Catholic hierarchy or whether the church structure should be revised.

This year’s conference, the fourth, is the first aimed solely at women who have themselves had a calling for the priesthood, they said.