Katolsk kvinnlig präst gästar vigning av kvinnlig buddhistdiakon
Ja, så spännande nyheter kommer just nu från Asien.
En av de vigda kvinnorna, Victoria Rue, har startat en blogg där hon berättar om sin resa (som pågår just nu), i interreligiöst dialogsyfte, och inte minst för att träffa kvinnor i andra religioner som är pionjärer på vigningsområdet s.a.s.
Hon deltog nyligen i denna vigning av en kvinnlig buddhistdiakon (motsvarande).
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"It's now Friday but I will try to describe a bit of what happened yesterday on July 17. I have been at the monastery of the first woman monk/bikkhuni of Thailand since Tuesday evening. But yesterday was quite amazing. At 5:30am I went with Ven. Dhammananda and her "novice" (like a deacon) and 7 or 8 volunteers making begging rounds in the nearby town. The devotion of all those who gave these women was palpable. I took video and pictures and will try to get them up on this blog soon.
Flowers and food were offered. Begging rounds are done on Thursday and Sunday. From this food, all the guests were fed who arrived for the ordination that same day. At 8am the young woman who was to be ordained had her shoulder length thick black hair cut off. I participated in this with 20 other women. She held a lotus leaf that caught the hair as it was clipped off. All the while she chanted: hair, nails, skin, flesh---to remind her of the impermanence of our bodies.
At 9am the ordination ceremony began.
A day earlier I had given Ven. Dhammananda a gift of a clear glass chalice with the words "Women's Ordination Conference" carved into the glass. WOC, as most of you know, has been organizing for women's ordination in the Catholic Church for 30 years.
And I have been a board member for the past 3 years. So it was with much gratitude that I saw Dhammananda place the chalice on a table to be used in the ceremony."
En intervju hon gjorde med den nyvigda kvinnan är också väldigt intressant - där finns bl.a. följande paralleller mellan den rörelse som viger katolska kvinnor och den "kvinnomunkrörelse" det här handlar om.
1. The Thai Sangha does not accept her ordination done in Sri Lanka by male and female monks. The Vatican does not accept RCWP ordinations.
2. There is a clear history of women ordained by the Buddha. There is a clear history of women ordained in the early church.
3.According to the Thai Sangha (like the Vatican) the ordination of women monks died out in the 1100's and can't be returned. There were women priests, deacons and bishops in the early church historically, but the Vatican denies this and when pushed to it suggests that these women were married to male deacons,priests, bishops and that's perhaps why they had the same titles.
4.There is clear need for women monks in Thailand. There were 330,000 male monks and now there are 180,000--young men are not joining. The number of male priests globally are declining in the church.
5. There have been abusive behaviors of male priests and male monks.
6. Both women monks and women priests are working to balance keeping the tradition and adding something new (inclusive language, equalizing participation of all, re-imagining rituals.
Skriver detta på en antik dator som varken visar bilder eller förmedlar ljud, eller låter mig skapa nya inlägg via bloggermenyn...
Det ska väl inte vara alltför lätt att blogga....?
Hur som helst - här är en nyanserad artikel om vigningarna av katolska kvinnor som jag just fick - ur National Catholic Reporter. Ska ni bara läsa en artikel om dem - läs den!
Hittills har 50 personer vigts, och hundratals står i kö - så detta visar onekligen Kyrkan något om vad som saknas idag, om vad som behöver åtgärdas.
Detta är ett steg bort från status quo. Oavsett vad man tycker om det. Och där är ju åsikterna som bekant delade i läsekretsen här. Det får de gärna vara... :-)
Vad nästa steg vidare blir vet vi inte, även om det går att skymta ett och annat i horisonten. Kanske vi en dag når fram till en modern Kyrka som samtidigt liknar urkyrkan - en icke-hierarkisk Kyrka där ingen vigs. Eller där var och en vigs/avskiljs/välsignas till tjänst på det sätt som passar honom/henne, och som fyller de behov som finns i Kyrkan - och utanför.
Det är knappt man hinner med det snabba skeendet i fråga om detta längre - har missat en del videoklipp och artiklar tror jag, från vigningen i Minneapolis. Ska leta vidare, återkommer senare om jag hittar några.
Här är i alla fall två videoklipp från vigningar nyligen i Kalifornien:
Fick nedanstående från flera håll idag. Rosemary Radford Ruether ska enligt uppgift ha skrivit det - men jag känner igen det mesta av det från andra håll, så det verkar vara ett hopplock av roliga historier som här har fogats samman.
***
ADAM WAS ONLY A ROUGH DRAFT
A synod of bishops from the four corners of the earth, and a full panoply of mother superiors recently converged on the Holy City of Rome to consider the vexed question of the ordination of men. The Holy See had received many tearful appeals from the cruder sex claiming to havea call to the priesthood directly from God herself. But Her Holiness had firmly replied to these appeals that the call must have been awrong number.
Our Holy Mother in heaven would never call to the ministry those soobviously disqualified by reason of gender. But the men had refused to take no for an answer. Throwing down their picks and shovels, they had declared that they would do no more maintenance work for the church until there was equality of rites.
They sent petitions to the Holy see, filled with arguments for the ordination of men, both theological and practical, although, ofcourse, they could cite no example from Jesus, the incarnation of Holy wisdom, because he most evidently had ordained no men to the priesthood(or women either).
It was said that confining the ordained ministry to widowed women over 65 was causing a crisis throughout the world. More and more older women felt the juices still flowing after 65 and were not willing to embrace blessed widowhood. Some preferred to run for prime minister or chairwoman of the board rather than to turn to the sacred service.
Finally, Her Holiness decided to gather the holy mothers of the church together, with a number of the best qualified peritae, who had of the male gender, from a safe distance, of course. They hoped to come up with a definite answer, once and for all, to the vexed question of the ordination of men.
After long and careful study, in which the holy mothers had enjoyed agood many laughs on the subject of men and their foibles, a final decree was drawn up defining the reasons that men could not be ordained. The decree was proclaimed by Her Holiness urbi et orbi, and the holy departed for their respective seats of wisdom, feeling very pleased with themselves. The decree Ad Hominem stated to their satisfaction and, it is hoped for all time, the weighty reasons for their gut prejudices.
The first part of the decree deduced a good many reasons from men's biological and psychological natures that disqualified them from thepriesthood. It was said, first of all, that men were too violent and emotional to be priests.
Anyone who has watched groups of men at football matches, ice hockey, soccer or cricket games, not to mention political conventions, has seen their volatile tendencies and penchant for solving conflicts with fisticuffs. To ordain such creatures would be to risk disgraceful brawls at the altar. The male proneness to violence surely disqualifies them from representing the One who incarnates graciousness and peace.
The cruder and heavier physical frame of the male clearly marks him for the physical tasks of society, digging ditches, mending roofs and the like. The finer, more spiritual tasks of society are intended by our Mother in heaven for those more refined spirits and bodies, women. This separation of roles is clearly evident in Scripture, where the males are said to have been created from dirt, while the women were created from human flesh. Moreover, women were created last, clearly marking them as the crown of God's creation. It was even suggested by one mother superior that Adam was a rough draft, Eve being the more refined and complete version of human nature. The mothers had a good many laughs on that one, and some decided to make it into a bumper sticker.
It was also felt that men were needed for military defense. A man'splace is in the army, declared one wise perita, and all the holy mothers nodded in agreement. Besides, men would look silly in red dresses and lace. The sacred garb is clearly intended for women.
Profound matters of a theological nature were also discussed. One perita had prepared a long paper proving from the symbolic order that men could not be ordained. The division of humanity into male and female is a profound mystery that symbolizes the relationship of the transcendent and the immanent, the spiritual and the material. Women represent the spiritual realm, men the material. The material must be ruled by the spiritual, just as Holy wisdom presides over the physical cosmos as her household.
Moreover, since the church is female, those who represent the church clearly should be female as well. There should be a physical resemblance between the priest and the church as holy mother. Obviously, this means that all priests should be mature women. The church is also said to be the bride of Christ, and brides are female. The priest, as representative of the church in relation to Christ, represents Christ's bride. Therefore, only women can be priests.
Finally, it was noted that most of the people who come to church are women, Men tend to stand outside the doors of the church gossiping or sneak off to sporting matches. To have a man on the altar might distract a woman from her prayers.
It was hoped that, with so many clear reasons from both the natural and the theological realms against the ordination of men, this would settle the matter. Male impertinence would be silenced, and they would slink back to their proper sphere. Roma locuta; cause finita.
Igår, på Pingstdagen, vigdes fyra katolska kvinnor och en (gift) man i Kanada.
BBC levererar nyheten så här. De fokuserar tyvärr på det (än så länge) "illegala" (antagligen för att det "säljer" mer om man framställer det så), och på att det inte pågår en dialog med Vatikanen. Vilket beror uteslutande på Vatikanen - kvinnorna som vigts vill mycket gärna ha en dialog. Men Vatikanen vill inte....
Samtidigt, i samma stad, men i en annan kyrka, vigdes en ensam celibatär man - och en artikel om detta fokuserar på den skriande prästbristen i det området.
Ironiskt!
Det hela hade ju enkelt kunnat lösas genom dessa sex nyvigda präster - men nu får bara en av dem tjänstgöra officiellt.
När ska katolska kyrkan sluta att sätta krokben för sig själv?
När ska man sluta neka kallade kvinnor och män som vill tjäna kyrkan - medan man ber om kallelser för att lösa prästbristen?
Det påminner mig om den "roliga" historien där en person är i livsfara, hänger över ett stup eller liknande - och ber Gud om räddning. Gud sänder tre personer - men alla visas bort av personen i fara - eftersom denne väntar sig ett "gudomligt" ingripande. Denne faller till sist ner och dör - och förebrår Gud för att inte ha sänt någon hjälp... Och får då veta att dessa tre var sända.
Det är slående likt detta - kyrkans egna regler hindrar bönesvaret!
Fast en tröst i sammanhanget är ju att samtliga vigda präster kommer att tjänstgöra - om än de flesta inofficiellt. Så för människorna i trakten kan det hur som helst bli en klar förbättring.
Det nedanstående är vad som gäller för Kanada och USA i sommar - och förutom det så tror jag att det blir en eller ett par vigningar i Europa:
This summer (2007) in Canada and the U.S.:
14 candidates will be ordained deacons. 12 of these are women. 2 are men. 9 women will be ordained priests.
The locations of the ordinations this summer (2007) are: Quebec, Toronto, New York, Santa Barbara, Portland, Minneapolis.
Jag ser nu att jag har missat att lägga in detta tidigare - ett samtal pågår på annat håll om det just nu - närmare bestämt här - välkomna att delta. Och ni som just hittat hit därifrån - ta gärna en titt i bloggarkivet - där finns mycket mer att läsa.
***
PRESS RELEASE by The Roman Catholic Womenpriests Movement, Canada
In Toronto on May 27, 2007, three women will be ordained as Roman Catholic priests by bishop Patricia Fresen of Germany.
Patricia Fresen, originally from South Africa where she was a nun for 45 years, is presently the international Program Coordinator of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement based in Germany. She was ordained a bishop in 2005 by an active Roman Catholic bishop in good standing.
This is the first ordination ceremony of the RCWP movement to take place on land in a church. All other public ceremonies have taken place on boats, usually in international waters, to avoid jurisdictional conflict with diocesan bishops. Also, for the first time in North America, a man will be ordained in a public ceremony in the RCWP movement.
This movement is making history in the Roman Catholic Church. It was born in 2002 and already there are 14 women priests in the U.S. and one in Canada, Michele Birch Conery of Parksville, BC. Also, there are over 100 candidates in training worldwide. At the Toronto ceremony, Marie Bouclin, from Sudbury, Ontario, and two other women from the U.S. will be ordained to the priesthood. Three others will be ordained as deacons at the same ceremony, one from the U.S. and two from Canada, Monica Kilburn-Smith of Calgary and Jim Lauder of Victoria, BC.
The movement is also maturing. The first ordinations that took place on the Danube in 2002 were designed to protest an unjust, discriminatory law of the Roman Catholic Church, namely, that women were denied access to ordained ministry. Now the movement wants to model another way of being Christian in the Roman Catholic tradition, a way that is more in keeping with what Jesus taught and lived.
As the church where the ordinations will take place is very small, attendance at the ceremony is by invitation. A press conference for radio and print media will follow the ordination ceremony. Exclusive television rights have been given to Vision TV.
I slutet av maj kommer tre kvinnor att vigas i Kanada - det har skrivits om dem redan - bl.a. denna artikel som innehåller en hel del tänkvärt - men som bara finns att läsa gratis på nätet ett par dar till - så skynda er!
Här ett kort utdrag:
"These women have sought change within the church, but they got nowhere. They feel excluded in an institution that is dear to them, and they are fighting for inclusion. Their chosen path should not to be mocked or derided - it should be seen as an opportunity.
The Catholic Church has had 2,000 years to shape its doctrines, surely this challenge is no threat. Instead, it should be the catalyst for debate.
Change is inevitable, even in rigid institutions like the Catholic Church. But it comes about because people take bold steps and challenge authority and well-established beliefs.
Bouclin and the others are prepared to face the consequences of their actions, which is exclusion from the church. Their methods can be challenged, but their spirituality and love for their faith should not be questioned.
