A Priest Forever

by Carter Heyward

published by Harper & Row, 1976, pp. 40-55. (Section III)
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

When a person is ordained a deacon, the expectation is commonly that he or she will be ordained a priest.(7) All along, she or he has been seeking ordination to the priesthood. The new deacon has understood this. The bishop has understood this. This mutual expecation regarding the deacon’s future ordination to the priesthood is in fact that upon which his or her ordination to the diaconate has been based.

As a deacon, the man or woman is allowed to baptize, officiate at weddings and funerals, preach, and minister to congregations and other groups as the bishop’s and priest’s assistant. She, or he, is not allowed to serve as rector (official head) of a parish, pronounce God’s blessing or absolution from sin, or serve as celebrant of Holy Communion, the central liturgical experience in the life of the Episcopal community. Furthermore, the deacon may not be elected a “deputy” (delegate) to the national Church’s triennial General Convention (legislative body) or to membership on an assortment of other governing bodies, such as ecclesiastical courts. A deacon’s salary is generally lower than that of a priest, and his or her chances for employment are severely limited, since parishes, chaplaincies, and other church agencies will normally seek priests for employment so that Holy Communion may be celebrated within the agency. The employment liability is especially acute for women deacons, since men deacons will be ordained priests very soon, and the prospective employer knows this.

Most often the man deacon, while limited in function for a short while, is for all practical purposes a “rookie” priest. He knows that, for the good of the Church, he will be ordained soon to the priesthood, the full sacramental ministry of the Church, while the woman deacon is left waiting, often unemployed—for months, years—and is told that her situation, too, is “for the good of the Church.”

The current Episcopal dilemma has been generated by these conditions. The problem is not that women deacons are in any ways deficient or “unworthy.” The problem is not that there is any canon law forbidding the ordination of women priests (which there is not, unlike in Roman Catholic canons).

The problem is that, since the 1970 General Convention officially agreed to affirm the ordination of women as deacons purportedly on “the same basis as men” (!), some several scores of women have been accepted, educated, and examined for ordination to the priesthood; have passed all tests with flying colors (usually with outstanding scores, recommendations, and credentials); and have been ordained deacons, with the expectation that the priesthood is “right around the corner.”

We have found ourselves waiting for somebody—some future General Convention perhaps, some bold bishop perhaps—to confirm now what our parishes and dioceses agree to be our call to the priesthood of the church—now.

***

In the late fall of 1973, a woman deacon said to her bishop as she urged him to proceed with her ordination to the priesthood:

“Oh, I could wait until the General Convention gives me permission to be who I am. I could wait, and I might. But, Bishop, when this permission is someday given and you ordain me to the priesthood, you’ll be ordaining only a shell. Because by then, through these years of disobedience to God on my part, I will have lost my soul.”

***

From the outset, I have appreciated the bishop of New York, Paul Moore, Jr.’s, humanness. He is not a pretentious person.

Paul Moore was affirmative of my call to the priesthood. By the fall of 1972, I had been accepted as a postulant and candidate for ordination to the priesthood. The bishop and I shared not only a hope, but naively an assumption, that the 1973 General Convention would clarify and make explicit the canonical possibility for the ordination of women to the priesthood. Thus began my active involvement with other women and men throughout the Church who were working hard for a reinterpretation of ordination canons. More significant than any specific political tasks we undertook was the community that was seeded among us and began to grow. Women deacons; women candidates, postulants, and aspirants; lay women; laymen; clergymen found each other and nurtured bonds among ourselves on the basis of not only our common goal, but moreover, our common vision of what the Church is called to be.

***

Since I was to be ordained a deacon in the summer of 1973, I spent the better part of the preceding year learning something of what it means to be a deacon, a servant, immersing myself in the needs of New York City. Alongside several academic requirements for graduation from seminary and for ordination, I worked part-time both as a therapist in a residency program for homeless adolescent boys and as a student-chaplain at Bellevue Hospital. In the seminary itself, I participated in a “core” group, an experimental, voluntary grouping of students who had contracted to shape and implement our own education, employing whatever resources we needed, individually and as a group. I continued in therapy and in consciousness-raising. The support that I received that year from student peers, supervisors, and people to whom I ministered was instructive.

***

If there is an order of ministry which has incorporated historically the call to do what is just, it is the diaconate. One of the charges made to a deacon upon ordination is that she, or he, “interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.”(8)

Upon my ordination to the diaconate, I would “solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship” of the Church. This was one part of an oath(9) that I certainly believed would support my attempts to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world. I had struggled with this “Oath of Conformity” prior to my ordination as a deacon, knowing that I could not commit myself unconditionally to conform to any set of unjust, hence ungodly, expectations. After conversation, study, and prayer, I had come to realize that the essence of that oath is in its expectation that any person who takes it will attempt to conform herself to the movement of the Holy Spirit. The Bible and the tradition should keep purposeful check on a person’s simply “doing her own thing.” One’s conscience and common sense should keep check on the manipulation of either Bible or tradition (including canon law) for ungodly purposes. I had come to realize that neither doctrine nor discipline nor worship, nor even the Holy Scriptures themselves, would offer easy answers or clear channels of accountability—"cheap grace" —to the deacon, priest, or bishop of the Church. After ordination, I would be faced with the same ambiguities, complexities, decisions, and risks that I had always faced.

***

By the time I was ordained a deacon, June 9, 1973, I was aware that central to my vocation would be a ministry of reformation within the Church, for the sake of the world; within the world, for the sake of the Church; and within myself, for the sake of my soul, which is the God-in-me, as in all. Ongoing reformation.

***

In late August, 1973, my sister deacon from New York, Carol Anderson and I went camping in Nova Scotia. We had looked forward to getting away from New York and our respective routines prior to the Louisville Convention. We needed refreshment. Furthermore, we wanted this time together, for in the course of our relationship, Carol and I had discovered something important about ourselves: While she leans toward prudence and I toward adventure, Carol and I are of a common theological mind. Our perceptions of world, self, and God are often identical. We had taken note frequently, with appreciation, of the checks and balances we brought to each other. We needed to be together to discuss our shared concerns about the Episcopal Church and our participation in it. We also needed to put our heads together about our alternatives should the General Convention again vote down women’s ordination.

We spent the better part of our week patching a hole in the tent, listening to bagpipes, combing beaches, collecting lobster crates and driftwood, reading, and discussing things that mattered to us. We agreed that a negative vote in convention would have to be challenged—perhaps by future votes, certainly by action. We agreed that a positive vote in convention might mean very little in the accomplishment of basic change in structures and theology of the church. We agreed that the Church must change radically—at its roots—if it were to be a viable institution for people in search of soul, people called to a corporate mission of healing brokenness, building community, and facilitating justice—essentially one and the same mission.

The two of us vented anger about the arrogance of a number of Episcopalians who speak of the “One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church” as if such an entity has a magical monopoly on Jesus Christ. We recognized the fear in which such theological and ecclesiastical arrogance is rooted—fear of all that lurks without, fear of “the other,” fear of the unknown, fear of each other, fear especially among the clergy who have created and perpetuated the delusion that the Body of Christ can best be adored within sanctuary walls and the tomes of tradition.

***

Given this fairly pervasive clerical fear, acted out often as a fear of women, could there be any wonder that sooner or later an Episcopal male cleric would hit, or otherwise physically assault, an Episcopal female cleric ?

My surprise at being scratched on the hand and cursed by a young male priest as I held the chalice from which he had sipped was less great than my surprise at many people’s inability to believe that such a thing could happen. Recently I was told that a young priest and outspoken opponent of women’s ordination has boasted to a Canadian churchwoman that he himself is the man who scratched me. Interestingly enough, I know this boyish “defender of the faith” and he is not the one. Wishful thinking perhaps. If looks could kill, we’d all be dead.

In case you’re getting any hate-mail, please consider this a piece of love-mail.

—Letter to me from priest,
Diocese of New York, winter, 1975.

Over a period of several years, I had a number of sequential dreams. In each there hung on the wall a picture of a man in a loincloth. The man was holding a lamb. In one of the last of these dreams, in the summer of 1973, shortly before General Convention, I dreamt that I was puttering about my dormitory room in New York’s Union Theological Seminary. To my surprise, I saw a picture hanging on the wall. It was of a young woman in a loincloth. She was holding a lamb. I moved closer to the picture and noticed that the lamb was wriggling, and the woman moving with it in her hold, so as not to drop it or let it go. I edged still closer and watched the lamb grow larger, and larger, and larger, until I could see nothing in the frame except a lamb who was coming to life and moving from the picture towards me. I heard the woman, by then invisible, say to me, “Take her, she’s yours!” And the lamb plopped into my arms.

The dream continued: I was walking up Broadway with the lamb in my arms. I did not know what to do with it. The lamb was heavy. It was “baa-a-aing” and nuzzling me as if it were hungry. I had a feeling that if I were to put it down long enough to search for something it could eat, it would get hit by traffic or be terrified and run away. Yet I could not carry it much further. It was too heavy. I began crying. I came into a long, seemingly endless, row of rooms. In each room sat some person, significant in my life, and to each person I offered the lamb. Each person refused to take it. Each looked at me—some tenderly, some angrily—and said to me, “Take her, she’s yours!” I awoke from this dream, sobbing. I felt as if the lamb were actually lying across my breasts pinning me down by its very being.

***

I found it still painful—and frightening—to claim myself, my own authority, stand up, and walk on my own.

***

In September, 1973, Carol and I, along with dozens of women deacons and seminarians, headed for Louisville, Kentucky, for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. With our notebooks filled with lists of deputies and indications of how each might vote and our knowledge of at least one person in most dioceses to whom we might turn for information, we were equipped as politicians. We knew already that the vote would be close, and that if we were to lose, it would be only barely by a voting system in which divided bloc votes (2-2 splits among the 4 votes to which each lay and clerical deputation is entitled) are registered, effectually, as “no.” Hence, even with a majority vote (as much as 75%), an issue can—and often does—lose.

We realized also that our efforts to win must be tidy and attractive. We must smile, be friendly, dress fashionably enough to be “ladies” and appropriately enough to be “clergy.” Like Miss America contestants, we must be on our best behavior.

Unlike Miss America contestants, we had few role models. We must be careful, lest we be so real—so human, happy, angry, enthusiastic, honest, tearful—as to offend those who were looking for some excuse to reject us.

This game-playing got to me. I began to feel plastic, shiny, mechanical, and I began to view others the same way. Every day brought with it increased estrangement from myself. Passing empty pleasantries with members of the Committee for the Apostolic Ministry (an opponent group) was an exercise in nonsense. Shying away from other controversial interest groups, so as not to risk tarnishing our image, was an exercise in hypocrisy. Listening silently to a prospective voter who believed there is too much “black power” in the church was my participation in racial discrimination.

Something was wrong. Surely I could be open to those who disagreed with me. But I could be so, I realized, only if I were to allow myself the freedom to argue earnestly with them, vigorously reject their views, all the while wearing the kind of hair, clothes, and buttons I wanted to. I had never been comfortable flirting, conniving, or using cunning to win dates, offices, or honors. I could not do so to win ordination.

***

At the convention, we received word of Jennie Moore’s death. Mrs. Moore, a writer, community leader, and Bishop Paul Moore’s wife, had been dying of cancer for months. Her death was no surprise to any of us, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had not known, or met, Jennie Moore, but I had known Paul and a number of Jennie’s friends. I was aware not only of Paul’s grief, but also of the hard blow her terminal illness had dealt those in her life who knew her to be a strong woman who was continuing to discover new things about herself. Oddly, I felt as if in Jennie Moore’s death something within me had been symbolically shattered. Perhaps it was the nondurable plasticity of the conventional game we were playing.

When we learned of her death, the women deacons from New York bounded out of our political roles into the composition of a message which we wired to Paul. We found our hearts engaged in something real and human..

***

On the following day, October 4, some forty women deacons (none of whom could be deputies, since deacons are officially disenfranchised) listened to clerical and lay deputies give reasons why women cannot, or may not, be ordained priests :(10)

—Jesus Christ, who was and is the Great High Priest, was a man. The ordained priest is Christ’s icon (i.e., Christ’s image). The ordained priest is an alter Christus, “another Christ.” The maleness of Christ was no accident and is today still no accident as the priest, the icon of Christ, stands before the people who are the Church, His Bride, and sacrifices His life for her in the breaking of His Body (the bread) and the shedding of His Blood (the wine). It is no more possible for a woman to be ordained a priest than for a jackass to be ordained a priest.

—The twelve apostles were men. If Jesus had wanted women to be priests, he would have chosen a woman disciple. In order to be faithful to the apostolic succession, as we are an heir to it, we must be faithful to its maleness.

—Women can be, and are, deacons, of course. They should work hard to build a stronger diaconate for the good of the Church.

—We will damage our relationship to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions if we ordain women priests. We should wait, at the very least, until we have a consensus among the entire Anglican Communion (Church of England and other Anglican bodies).

—There is already an oversupply of clergy in the Church. We really don’t have room for women priests.

—Woman’s place is in the home. This change would weaken the fabric of the family. It would heighten sexual confusion and lead, eventually, to divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and other “ills.”

—Women are simply unfit to be priests. They cry too easily. They can’t go out alone at night. They are needed in the nursery and in the kitchen, places where their maternal instincts and feelings can best be employed. After all, that’s the way God made them!

—Just look at those women deacons! Aggressive, dressed in pants, acting like a bunch of men. If we have to have women priests, let’s wait until we can have some real women.

***

An exercise in imagination for my male reader:(11) My brother, imagine, just imagine for a minute, that at age 27, you are ordained a deacon in the Church; and that three months later, the General Convention of the church (90 percent of its deputies female) discusses in your presence whether or not men should be allowed to be priests. Neither you nor any deacon is allowed a voice or vote. Church policy. You listen to the reasons given by those who believe that you should not be allowed to be a priest:

—Since there is only one Great High Priest—Jesus Himself— according to the book of Hebrews, we need not fear that “maleness” be left out of the fullness of the ordained ministry. Jesus Christ, in His spiritual presence, provides enough of the masculine for all time and all people. What is indispensable to the priesthood of the Church is the feminine component: faith, intuitive receptivity from God in order to serve as a vehicle by which others can come to faith. Men are incapable of serving in this way. Alas, it is no more possible for a man to be ordained a priest than for a jackass to be ordained a priest.

—The witnesses to the Resurrection were women. If God had wanted men to be priests, She’d have sent them to the empty tomb.

—Indeed, men can be deacons, since the diaconate is best modeled after Jesus’s twelve male disciples. Men should be encouraged to be deacons, since the church needs a stronger diaconate.

—Even if men should be allowed such ordination, we cannot jeopardize our relationship to Rome or to the rest of the Anglican Communion. We must wait until the Holy Catholic Church agrees with us before taking this important step.

—There are too many women priests as it is! We do not have room for men priests. It would be unfair to them.

—Having men as priests would produce sexual confusion in the church and society. Can you imagine seeing men in long skirts! And expecting men to play women’s roles like listening, comforting, and preparing and serving food to others. This would destroy the family as we know it and lead to “perversion.”

—Men are simply unfit emotionally and physically for the work of a priest. Their presence is needed elsewhere—as carpenters, plumbers, occupations that require machismo, muscles, and brawn. After all, that’s the way God made them!

—Just look at those men deacons! Running around in bright-colored clothes and praying like a bunch of women! If we must have men priests, let’s wait until we can have some real men.

***

Quietly we watched women’s ordination go down to defeat.

I saw my sister deacon Carol’s lip quivering. I noticed that my sister seminarian Huntley’s lovely face was contorted. Across the stadium, I caught a glimpse of the woman who had become known to many of us as “the bishop to the women,” deacon Sue Hiatt. Her head was bowed. I felt nauseated, sick, and immobile, as my eyes gazed out upon the arena of deputies who had torn us apart as surely as if they had been lions and we, those early Christians whom no one would believe.

Suddenly a deputy from Pennsylvania, Mr. Donald Belcher, sprang to his feet on the convention floor and took the microphone nearest him. He cried out :

Mr. President, Members of the House:

I rise to a point of personal privilege. There is a priest in the Diocese of Pennsylvania who has counseled many of us lovingly and wisely on the subject of the ordination of women. Anticipating the possible defeat of this resolution, two nights ago I sat alone and wondered what I could possibly say to that loving and wise priest to whom the ordination of women meant so much. And I decided I would say:

Thank you for your gifts so far;
Thank you for your courage which I do not have;
Thank you for the hope you will, God willing, continue to clasp close to you and radiate to us.

And do not despair, Susan Hiatt, for in God’s eyes you are priest indeed. They cannot close you in; they cannot defeat you, for in Christ you are free.

O Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn.
O Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn.
Pharaoh’s army got drownded.
O Mary, don’t you weep.

—Negro Spiritual

***

I will not forget Sue Hiatt’s stoic silence, Union Seminary President Bishop Brooke Mosley’s restrained tears, and the Bishop of Pennsylvania Robert DeWitt’s eyes cast downward in thoughtful intensity. I will not forget the drifting together of many as if to a wake, much in the manner of elephants who press close together to mourn when one in their midst has died.

***

The day was upon me when I would begin to admit that I could no longer bow down to the golden calf, the phallic idol of Christendom. I would begin to see that “women’s ordination” is not a matter which belongs to the arena of a general convention. A vote is to be taken when one is faced with viable alternatives, such as old and new prayer books. Whereas prayer book revision is a matter of taste, women’s ordination is a matter of justice. And as in all matters of justice, one is faced with a choice essentially between the worship of God and the worship of an idol—in this case the phallus of male anatomy, every bit as much an idol as the breasts of fertility goddesses might be considered. By no stretch of imagination is phallic idolatry, the adoration of male genitalia, a viable alternative for a community of the Christian faithful. In Louisville, it occurred to me that, on this issue, we have no business attempting to win favor with man and votes from him. People seldom vote for justice until it is too late.

And he [Moses] took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the people of Israel drink it.

Exodus 32:20

A number of us gathered in a motel suite and considered our alternatives. Most of us had no question that there should be an ordination of women priests in the near future. We had many questions about how, who, when, where, and which bishops, priests, women deacons, and laypeople among those present might choose to participate in the ordaining community.

***

We left Louisville to return to our respective communities. When I returned to Union Seminary and to St. Mary’s parish (West Harlem, New York City, not to be confused with St. Mary the Virgin near Times Square, where women priests are considered anathema), I was met by an extension of the same mourning-community I had left in Louisville. Women and men, Episcopalians and others, had received the news from Kentucky as one would receive news of a friend’s death.

Students and faculty at Union had gathered in vigil while we were gone and had written and compiled reflections which they shared with us on our return. They were tokens of an assurance we had never doubted; among them:

Sisters:

You have the ministry which is in Christ Jesus—in you as well! You have it. It is yours by the power of the Spirit, speaking in your spirits. None can take it from you, for we who have been ministered to by you have confirmed it already through the healing your presence has brought to us. Whatever happens at Louisville is beside the point with respect to this, your ministry. It is not beside the point with respect to what the Church can do and be in our time, however. The decision being made in Louisville is whether the Church will choose what is life-giving, or whether it will continue to walk in fear, apostasy, death.

My prayer for you is that you stand in your calling, bearing in power the struggle between grace and demonry going on there in Louisville.

My prayer is also one of gratitude for myself, that whatever happens, you will soon be here again.

My prayer for the Church is that it may be delivered from the demons, to discern the Spirit in the spirits. It needs that deliverance. There is much it could still do for human beings if that deliverance were given. May those who have eyes discern what decision is actually being made.

Why do they think it’s so great when they give us “permission” to be whole?

I hope they raise a stink, Lord. Let’s get the kingdom all the nearer.

Why am I fortunate enough to be a member of a denomination, by birth, that already grants women the ministry? Or, perhaps, my Episcopal sisters, as other women in history, will experience more of God’s message by having stood up for that in which they believe revealed in His word.

Grant that all brothers and sisters share a commitment together for the good of all. For, after all, we are all captives as long as there are those oppressed.

Dear God:

How about a little Old Testament vindication!!

The strength, the pounding strength
The power, the forging power
The truth, the sounding truth
The hands, the joining hands
Pound Strength, Forge Power
Sound Truth, Join Hands.
We will stand in strength,
Power, truth, and unity.
We will not be broken.
We will become.

The struggle, the pain, the defeat, the hope, the determination could not be confined to, or contained within, a small group of Episcopal women deacons and seminarians. Ours was a Church issue, a men’s issue, a lay issue, an ecumenical issue, a human issue broad-based in its connection to all issues of institutional justice.

***

Distress was apparent among the people of St. Mary’s parish. Both Emily Hewitt and I had spent time as deacons at St. Mary’s. The parishioners were hopeful that the bishop of New York would rally the Standing Committee of the Diocese and move ahead with the ordination of New York’s six women deacons to the priesthood. In early November, 1973, we six met with Paul Moore and asked him to think about ordaining us. He told us he would consider it, but that his initial reaction was negative.

Several weeks later, five bishops (Moore of New York, Spears of Rochester, DeWitt of Pennsylvania, Ogilby also of Pennsylvania, Mead of Delaware) met with nine women deacons (the six from New York: Carol Anderson, Julia Sibley, Emily Hewitt, Marie Moorefield, Barbara Schlachter, me; plus Sue Hiatt, Merrill Bittner, and Betty Schiess). Together with Harvey Guthrie from the Episcopal Theological School and Tom Pike from New York’s Calvary Church, the group spent the better part of twenty-four hours hashing and rehashing the pros and cons of an “irregular” ordination. The women deacons felt strongly that we should move full-speed ahead. The bishops were unsure, not of whether we were ready to be priested, but rather of whether such action might prove “counterproductive” or of whether each of them, individually, would choose to make the move at this time.

Twenty-two hours into the discussion, having reached an impasse, we deacons walked out. We could tell that these bishops shared with us the belief that such an ordination would be morally right. We had witnessed, it seemed to us, their inability to comprehend the moral imperative of the matter, for they seemed unable to comprehend the corporate pain of increasing numbers of churchwomen. We could tell them about our pain. We could show them our pain from time to time. But they were men. They were not women, and we could not give them our pain, pour it into their psyches any more than a black person can give a white person her humiliation from having been spat at when she stopped to sip from the “wrong” water fountain.

And I don’t want to be trite
but yes, it makes a difference.
Sister, keep up the fight,
continue your insistence.(12)

By late fall of 1973, a number of Episcopal women had begun to speak determinatively of action. Behind several of us lay the experience of meeting with bishops who shared our concern but not our urgency. Ahead of us, we would have the occasions of coming together and acting on concern in a spirit of shared urgency.

The urgency became first most publicly apparent on December 15, 1973, at the ordination of five men deacons to the priesthood in the Diocese of New York. Five women deacons from the diocese were presented at this time by Episcopal laypeople and clergy (in several cases, our own rectors and vestries) for ordination as priests. The sixth woman deacon, Marie Moorefield, was sick and could not fly in from her Kansas home, although she had the endorsement of her New York rector and vestry.

The women deacons had met at length to consider in what way we might bring our case before the bishop and other people in the diocese. At first, we thought only of a “witness” to our dilemma: we would be presented for ordination, we would be refused, and our rejection would be a public symbol of the injustice being perpetrated by the Church on its own. We felt that Episcopal and general public needed to be made aware of what was taking place within an institution that calls itself the Body of Christ.

Continuation of "A Priest Forever"

Notes

7. There are a number of deacons who are, officially, “perpetual deacons.” These men and women consider the diaconate to be their vocation. These deacons, and their bishops, understand all along that they do not intend to be priests. They are educated accordingly. The examinations and requirements for the perpetual diaconate are considerably different from, and not as stringent, as the requirements for deacons who plan to be priests. As indicated in footnote 4, there are also a number of deaconesses, women who were “set apart” prior to 1970, when the General Convention first officially opened the diaconate to women on the same basis as men. The deaconesses automatically became deacons in 1970, although a number of them have preferred to retain their identity as “deaconess”—as distinct from deacon. There are other deaconesses, now deacons, who have long believed themselves called to the priesthood.

8. Services for Trial Use: Authorized Alternatives to Prayer Book Services (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, A Contributing Affiliate of the Church Pension Fund, 1971), p. 451. This ordinal was used when I was ordained a deacon in 1973.

9. See Article VIII of the Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America Otherwise Known as The Episcopal Church (adopted in General Conventions), 1789-1973.

10. See Emily C. Hewitt and Suzanne R. Hiatt, Women Priests: Yes or No? (New York: Seabury, 1973), for an instructive presentation of the arguments surrounding the issue of women’s ordination. Written two years prior to their ordinations as priests.

11. This exercise in imagination is adapted from my article, “A Perspective on Women Priests,” in Leaven, no. 8 (1974).

12. From a song, “sister: priest (Carter’s Song),” written by a student and friend, Jill E. Thompson, New York, 1975; used with permission.

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