Feminism
Update: Women's ordination
By Insight Staff

Hardcopy Issue Date: March 2002
Online Publication Date: Mar 23, 2002, 15:36

Toronto - The issue of women's ordination continues to be pursued by feminists. In our Jan/Feb 2002 edition, C.I., discusses Sister Joan Chittister (pp. 11-13) on this subject. In November 2001, she gave another address at the annual Call to Action Conference in Chicago. CTA gathers Catholics who describe themselves as "progressive;" i.e., wanting to progress beyond the Church's boundaries set by Christ and the Magisterium. Kevin Simpson of Vancouver, writing in the Island Catholic News, Jan. 2002, pp. 6-7, reports that "her appearance was greeted by a tumultuous five-minute standing ovation from the crowd in excess of 2000." Her remarks included a strong emphasis on the call to priestly ministry for all persons (emphasis ours).

P.S. Novalis Publishers, Ottawa/Toronto, promote Chittister's books in Canada.

P.P.S. Sister Joan Chittister highly recommends a new book by retired Bishop Remi de Roo, Diane Tolomeo, and Pearl Gervais of Vancouver Island entitled Biblical characters and the enneagram.

Another strong supporter of Sister Joan and women's ordinations is Toronto's Catholic New Times (CNT). On December 2, 2001, the twice-a month newspaper celebrated its 25th anniversary. Its lead article walked down memory lane and 25 years of publishing of what the collective itself considers to be an "alternative" voice in the Canadian Catholic media. Its "collective" consists mostly of teachers and religious sisters who support "progressive" causes.

True to form, the anniversary edition also carried an article "Married Catholic Women Ordained." The essay concerned the "ordination" of an excommunicated woman in Rochester, N.Y., Mary Ramerman, by a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in California, until recently a schismatic Catholic group dating from 18th-century Holland, but today also heretical in addition to being schismatic.

It was penned by Toronto's self-excommunicated Joanna Manning who, needless to say, described the "ordination" of poor Mary Ramerman as a triumph for womanhood. Writes Joanna: "Several speakers alluded to Mary's assumption of the full stole of priestly office as a casting off of the veil of Taliban-like confinement imposed on Catholic women by the Vatican" (CNT, p.10).

Among Canadian women sending their congratulations were Marie Bouchin, Carol Connick, Veronica Dunne, Kristen Goa, and Velma Fitzgerald, all of the Women's Equality Network, and Eloise Bucholtz of Peterborough who "made the stole offered to Mary Ramerman on behalf of Canadian women."

Among well-known American Catholic dissenters in attendance were Call to Action activists Loretto Sister Maureen Fiedler, and Chicago prophetess Edwina Gately. The latter will speak at the Centre for Spiritual Growth in Ottawa on April 26-28, at the Old Town Hall Community Centre. This centre is run by feminist religious sisters who obviously know what they are doing.

4: Joanna Manning
Toronto-Joanna Manning will not rest. Not only does the divorced "Catholic" school teacher reject Church teaching in matters of faith (as above on ordination) and morals (contraception, abortion, homosexuality), but she regularly attacks Pope and Church publicly, using different disguises.

At the end of January she and her friends-disguised as "Challenge the Church" group-argued against Toronto City Council funding of World Youth Day (WYD). Stated the Toronto Sun: "citing the church's views on birth control, homosexuality and abortion, Manning said she has 'grave questions' about tax dollars being used." She added: "The Vatican has got plenty of surplus paintings it could dispose of to finance the event" (Jan. 29, Sun, Star).

A few days later the news broke of large billboards being erected on two street corners-with others to come-attacking the Church and her bishops for supposedly condemning AIDS patients to death by opposing condoms. The poster is signed: Catholics for Free Choice. Spokeswomen: Kathleen Howes and yours truly, Joanna Manning.

As Catholic Insight has pointed out before, Catholics for Free Choice is a fraudulent organization. It is un-Catholic, has very few members, and is financed by large anti-Catholic foundations such as the Ford, Rockefeller, Packard and the Gates Foundations. The Toronto billboard was paid for by the American office as will the others. The point is to embarrass the Pope during WYD. The billboards have appeared already in Washington, D.C., where chancery officials have expressed vigorous opposition.

In Latin America, CCF members have been excommunicated. In the United States, the Bishops' Conference has ruled that Frances Kissling and company have excommunicated themselves.

Msgr. Schonenbach
In Toronto the remarkable thing is that Manning continues to teach in the Catholic school system. Neither bishops nor trustees seem willing to take action. One reason why tey won't act may be that they share the views of the secretary-general of the Conference of Bishops in Ottawa, Msgr. Peter Schonenbach reported in the Globe and Mail. Asked for his opinion on the aggressive insultingh billboards, the Globe states:

"But Monsignore Peter Schonenbach, secretary-general of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said of the advertisements in Canada: 'It's a free country. They can do what they want.'

"Father Schonenbach, known for his candour, said: 'The church is stuck with its position on this.' He said the issue has been difficult for the global church, which embraces different social viewpoints;' he likened it to Pope Paul VI's controversial and unexpected decision to ban the birth-control pill in 1968."

Here one learns that we Catholics are stuck with opposing condoms and stuck with opposing contraception, presumably because these positions have been foisted upon us by presumably foolish popes. This attitude tells everything. One couldn't find a better explanation for the very unsatisfactory leadership of the Canadian Conference of Bishops over the last 35 years in matters dealing with the family and the moral permissiveness which attacks it.