Episcopal Press and News
Ordination Plans Announced by Five Women Deacons
Diocesan Press Service. August 28, 1975 [75294]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Five women deacons of the Episcopal Church have announced their intention to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church at a service here on September 7, in opposition to the advice of their bishops and of the Bishop of Washington, in whose jurisdiction the service is to be held.
Bishop George W. Barrett, 67, resigned Bishop of Rochester (New York) since 1970, has announced in a letter to the bishops of the Church his intention to perform the ordinations at the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation. The rector of that Church, the Rev. William A. Wendt, was recently found guilty of permitting a woman whose ordination is disputed to function as a priest.
Bishop Barrett is currently executive director of Planned Parenthood in Santa Barbara County, California.
The five women who announced the ordination plans are :
* The Rev. Phyllis Edwards, 58, of the Diocese of Chicago, formerly director of Christian education on the clergy staff of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Evanston, Ill. The late Bishop James A. Pike of the Diocese of California proposed "recognizing" her as being within Holy Orders as a deaconess of the Church in 1965, five years before the General Convention officially opened the diaconate to women.
* The Rev. (Eleanor) Lee McGee, 33, of the Diocese of Washington, chaplain and assistant coordinator of religious affairs at American University.
* The Rev. Alison Palmer, 44, of the Diocese of Washington, director of the Office of International Labor Affairs for the U.S. Department of State. She has served as a foreign service officer in Ghana, the Congo, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. In 1974 she became the first woman to be ordained a deacon in her diocese.
* The Rev. Dr. Betty Rosenberg, 30, pastoral counselor on the campus ministry staff of Georgetown University. She was the first woman to be ordained a deacon at the Washington Cathedral.
* The Rev. Diane Tickell, 57, of the Diocese of Alaska, a member of the staff of the Social Service Crisis Intervention Center of Anchorage Community Hospital. Currently she is a candidate for a Doctor of Ministry degree at Andover-Newton Theological Seminary, Newton Centre, Mass.
In a joint statement to the members of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, the five deacons said that since "our diocesan bishops refuse to ordain us priests despite months of effort by us and by many in our dioceses to influence them to proceed, " they had turned to a non-diocesan bishop who had agreed to ordain them.
"Nothing in Episcopal Church canon law," the women's statement said, "prohibits ordination of women to the priesthood."
"We recognize that this ordination will bring joy and hope to many, anger and conflict to others," they continued. "We believe we are acting In response to the Holy Spirit." They concluded their statement by appealing to "all Christians, whether in agreement or disagreement with our decisions " to "join our prayers for our Church in its struggle to embody Christ's teachings."
Bishop Barrett said he could not "refuse to act in this instance . . . despite my great reluctance to increase the tensions within the Church, to disrupt its peace, or to add to the problems of fellow bishops, particularly those in positions of jurisdictional responsibility. "
He added that he feels he "must do what I can to eliminate this injustice and scandal, both in justice to the persons who suffer from it and for the integrity and witness of the Church in our society."
Bishop William F. Creighton of Washington said that he has "informed Bishop Barrett that he does not have my permission to ordain deacons to the priesthood in this diocese. "
The September 7 service follows by more than a year a disputed ordination service in Philadelphia when 11 women deacons and four bishops of the Church were participants. Following the Philadelphia service on July 29, 1974, the House of Bishops, by a vote of 129 to 9, with 8 abstentions, said that "the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled " in that service.
The 1975 meeting of the House of Bishops will be in Portland, Me., Sept. 19-26, at which time some issues concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood will be considered.
Recently Maine's Episcopal bishop sent a letter to those involved in the controversial ordination of 11 women as priests, saying their act had led indirectly to the death of Louisiana's Bishop Iveson B. Noland in an airliner crash at Kennedy International Airport in New York on June 24.
Bishop Noland had been on his way to attend a meeting of Presiding Bishop John M. Allin's Council of Advice, made up of presidents of the Church's nine provinces, called, Bishop Wolf's letter said, "to deal with matters relating to the Philadelphia event and subsequent events in preparation" for the Portland meeting of the bishops. Bishop J. Antonio Ramos of the Missionary Diocese of Costa Rica has informed the Presiding Bishop that he will not attend the September meeting of the House of Bishops "for two very personal reasons."
Bishop Ramos, who was one of the four participating bishops in the disputed Philadelphia ordination service, cited Bishop Wolf's letter as the first reason. "I cannot in all conscience, " he wrote, "be present and participate in events of the diocese of a brother bishop who has such a low estimate of those of us who, obedient to the Gospel's freedom and call, participated in the Philadelphia ordinations."
He said that he was cancelling two preaching appointments in Maine in September because he "would not be able to preach the Gospel in those congregations feeling as I do, nor would I feel welcome in the diocese."
He said that he could understand Bishop Wolf's anger, "but I cannot accept his reasoning nor his judgmental attitude, nor his relating what we did to a tragic accident and a death we all deplore."
He said that his second reason for cancelling his plan to attend the House of Bishops meeting is that he feels the House should "be free and open to express their true feelings " about the board of inquiry issue and other matters related to the ordination controversy, which could be done best, he said, if he and the other three bishops involved were not present.