WOC figures 2000

Over the past 25 years, I've been acutely aware that the most groundbreaking, indeed radical, feminist theology and spirituality have come from Roman Catholic women. While Protestant women have been concerned with how to get placements as women clergy, Catholic women have been questioning "why clergy, especially in their traditional roles?" My theory is that Catholic women's very exclusion from the ordination process has radicalized them to think creatively and innovatively, while those denominations ordaining women too often have co-opted them. To show how and why this may be so, I will offer five lessons from Protestant women's experience in the hope that when ordination comes for Catholic women they can be proactive in demanding organizational safeguards so these lessons aren't repeated.

Lesson One: Women's ordination doesn't mean that it's available to women everywhere, or that opponents won't try to reverse it.
Episcopal women have been ordained to the priesthood for nearly 25 years, yet women in Ft. Worth, Texas, or Peoria, Illinois, cannot be ordained unless they geographically relocate to another diocese. This situation arose from the "conscience clause" that absolves bishops who do not believe in women's ordination from having to oversee and pastor women clergy in their dioceses. Thus, they could block women's ordination. At the Episcopal Church's 1997 General Convention, the "conscience clause" finally was repealed and dioceses not ordaining women were told they had to allow it. Although some headway has been made, there still are holdouts. In 1998, at the Lambeth Conference of Bishops representing the Anglican Communion that is held about every decade, a resolution was passed affirming the conscience clause. Even though Lambeth does not have binding authority, there are two implications. First, those who don't want women clergy can appeal to the collegial spirit of Lambeth by claiming "conscience." Second, conservatives have used the Lambeth resolution to pressure their own churches to reinstate the conscience clause, leaving women clergy vocationally dependent on the attitude of their bishop. Some denominations have in fact revoked prior support for women's ordination, most notably the Southern Baptist Convention. For clergywomen, the battle may be won, but the struggle is not over.

Lesson two: Once the door has opened to women's ordination, denominations also have found ways to benefit from women clergy--ways that women have not anticipated.
Women willing to work part-time or for free have found plenty of opportunities for ministry. Women who avoid identifying with feminism also have found opportunities. And women identifying their vocation as servants of the church, seeking to become permanent deacons, have been warmly welcomed in many dioceses. The permanent diaconate in the Episcopal Church has grown in direct relation to pressure for women's ordination to the priesthood. During the 1970s, the permanent diaconate was theologically articulated to be an icon of servanthood, the gospel of work in the world. As such, it shifted to a nearly complete nonstipendary order. Concurrently, professional training programs emerged. Despite priesthood being open to women since 1976, the gender ratio of those annually being ordained as permanent deacons has tipped from predominately male to female (Figure 1). Based on my sample of about 400 Episcopal women clergy ordained in five-year intervals since 1970, female permanent deacons typically have been women ordained in their mid-forties, married, with a long history of lay ministry, a bachelor's or master's degree, and no seminary education. From interviews, some women spoke of strong pressure by their bishops to pursue the permanent diaconate rather than the priesthood. Women priests also spoke of substantial tensions between female deacons and priests, the deacons being more conservative. As one female priest stated, "We have one on our Commission on Ministry who doesn't believe women should be priests!" As pressure grew for dioceses to have more women clergy, the permanent diaconate provided a strategic solution. Educated lay women could be targeted, "home schooled," and ordained as permanent deacons, thereby adding to diocesan statistics on women clergy without risk of her introducing feminist or other progressive concerns learned in seminary. From my research, I've suggested that female priests need to make alliances with female permanent deacons, despite these differences, in order to avoid being pitted against one another as "good girl traditionalists" versus "bad girl feminists." Another tension seldom discussed involves an overlap of ministerial job pools between permanent deacons and female priests. Over the last 15 years, this overlap has grown (Figure 2). Female priests, especially in their first few placements, are far more likely than men to hold the job title of "deacon" while preparing for the priesthood, and to hold more nonstipendiary or part-time positions later, regardless of their marital or parental status.

Lesson three: Time does not heal all discrimination or inequality.
At the outset of women's ordination in the Episcopal Church, many said that "it will just take time" for women to have the same opportunities as men. In most denominations that ordain women, the gender ratio now ranges about 10 to 15 percent female. About 14 percent of all Episcopal priests are women. Of all Episcopal clergy ordained annually, over 40 percent now are female (Figure 3). Yet, change has been slow in the direction of gender parity. Women have been invaluable to rank and file ministry, but they are still not well represented in positions where they have the resources and voice to influence denominational doctrine and practices. Across denominations, women historically have taken dirt-poor or dying parishes, built them up, then been displaced by a man--either by the denomination or by the congregation itself. While the raw number of female rectors has grown over time--about 38 percent of the 2,100 women priests have now held rectorships (in charge of a self-supporting parish)--movement to higher leadership has been more difficult. Large parishes and cathedrals with ample resources for ministry remain disproportionately in the hands of men. Furthermore, when one studies what has happened to female priests over time, by examining clergy who have held a parish rectorship at some point in their ministry, three trends are evident (Figure 4). First, women's length of time in the priesthood has narrowed but not closed the gender gap. Second, this decreased gender gap is primarily due to a decline over time in the percentage of men attaining rectorships . Third, the percentage of women attaining rectorships after 10 years in the ministry is no greater today than in 1980 (Figure 5). While this latter trend may be due to a smaller number of women in those early cohorts and a limited but eager demand among liberal parishes to have a female rector, the percentage of parishes accepting female rectors still lags in relation to the pool of qualified women. The persistence of the gender gap reinforces this trend.Episcopal women priests have been told, "but you've had so much theology and tradition to change." Yet when Episcopal and Unitarian Universalist female clergy are compared, the latter who have had access to ordination since the nineteenth century, a similar gender gap emerges (Figure 6). In 1980 two-thirds of U.U.A. ordinands were female, yet the gender gap in attainment was the largest of any cohort examined. The Unitarian Universalist trends make two points. First, gender differences in attainment are sensitive to the increased ratio of women rather than to the length of time that women have had access to ordination. And second, the gender gap in ministry cuts across denominational and theological differences.Some may validly argue that not all women clergy want to be in charge of a parish, with the attendant pressures it brings, and therefore women's differing interests in ministry can explain away the gender gap. From interviews, that was indeed the case: several women said they had no interest in full-time parish ministry or rectorships. However, they also talked about not wanting to have to "prove herself" over and over as a woman, to be drawn into church politics in an "old-boy system," to be expected to put in 80 hours per week as many of their male colleagues find themselves doing, and to live in a fishbowl that involves different norms for women than men. Many of their concerns were linked to gender effects rather than to an aversion to parish ministry. Parish ministry, however, can indeed be more precarious for women than for men. For each ordination year examined, men would tend to move from an entry-level curate or assistant position to a rectorship within three years, while women would move to another assistant or associate position, many of which were part-time or nonstipendiary. Women weren't likely to attain a rectorship until their third or fourth job, if at all. This was the case despite a woman's educational level, age at ordination, her marital status or whether she had children. Since the clergy staff must offer its resignation when rectors retire or resign, women disproportionately become forced onto the job market for whatever positions happen to be open at the time.

Lesson four: Women clergy have found that there isn't necessarily safety in numbers.
With a growing number of women clergy, internal diversity is bound to occur. Twenty years ago, women clergy in many dioceses were too few to support a caucus. Now, many women don't sense the need for it. Lack of communication allows those opposed to gender parity to divide and conquer, playing off one woman against another. Women also have learned that being a "nice girl," not too feminist, pays dividends in terms of showcase opportunities--to serve in diocesan and national liturgies, commissions, and councils. Bishops less than totally committed to gender parity can select for mentoring those women who hold views closer to their own. In my research, I've identified two types of tokenism among Episcopal women clergy: "groundbreaking tokens" and "maintenance tokens." The first women to break ground as priests or bishops tended to show evidence of being the most radical in their commitment to feminism and social change. They also had to be tough enough to succeed despite the hostility they encountered. They were selected and mentored precisely for their prophetic ability, as their male mentors gained some prestige from their success. However, after ground is broken, "maintenance tokenism" often results in women with somewhat different commitments and experiences. Nowhere has this been more evident than among female bishops. In my research at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the eleven female bishops from across the Anglican Communion were acutely aware of their diversity, particularly as the newer bishops held less ardent feminist commitments. Indeed, at the 2000 General Convention, some female bishops supported a reinstatement of the conscience clause.

Lesson five: Women clergy, by their presence, nonetheless catalyze social change.
At the 1998 Lambeth Conference, only one interviewee told of an incident where a male bishop walked out of a Bible study being led by a female bishop. The widely anticipated hostility toward the female bishops never surfaced. Additionally, the male bishops interviewed felt that the female bishops represented "fresh air," an opportunity to change the Church from a traditional authoritarian leadership model to one that was more relational. But because of male peer pressure, they felt constrained to change the prevailing norms themselves. Research on male rabbis' attitudes towards women entering the rabbinate similarly found the expectation that women's presence can transform norms in ways too risky for men to undertake (Marder 1991).

Conclusion
What Roman Catholic women can learn from their clergy sisters in other denominations and traditions is that women risk becoming ordained handmaidens, laborers in the churchly vineyard, a badly needed secondary labor supply. The church structure may shift to accommodate them, but in ways that effectively may limit women's power or voice. Once ordained, will Catholic women have realistic opportunities to become bishops, cardinals, or pope, without being co-opted in ways that continue to benefit those types of men who have traditionally held power and kept women and others on the margin? How might Catholic women priests keep the radical edge that has been such a gift to feminist religion and spirituality? To not repeat these lessons depends upon being proactive, attentive, monitoring changes in how ministry is enacted in the church, and putting checks and balances in place to assure that women have opportunities to minister at the top as well as at the grassroots. A final, personal note: My own bishop did not believe that women should be priests, and only in his last act before retiring did he sign me into postulancy. However, he structured the letter with conditions that he believed I could never meet. Somewhat miraculously, I did, by doing a year of Clinical Pastoral Education in a Roman Catholic Parish--as an Episcopal woman in the ordination process. When I arrived, the pastor introduced me as "Paula Nesbitt, from 'the seminary,' here for a few months to do research." I was given no ministerial tasks other than to talk with people after Mass. Quickly, I learned the ministry of "hanging out." But a number of transformations occurred that year. For example, the pastor decided to take his entire pastoral staff which included women to the Vicariate meeting, and when the Cardinal asked the women to leave he and his entire staff marched out. On another day, the first Sunday after Easter, the most conservative priest in the parish took me into the sacristy for about an hour and instructed me: "When you're a priest, remember to warm the water for babies at baptism so they won't cry. When you're a priest…." Minds and hearts do change when they see--or even imagine--women as priests and bishops. Despite the problems of gender parity, women's ordination does embody hope for a transformed, inclusive Church indeed representative of the full Body of Christ.

References

Episcopal Clerical Directory 1999. CD-ROM. New York: Church Hymnal Corp.

Marder, Janet. "How Women Are Changing the Rabbinate." Reform Judaism. 19(4): 4-8, 41, 1991.

Nesbitt, Paula D. Feminization of the Clergy in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. -----.

"Gender, Culture and Power: Through the Looking Glass of the 1998 Lambeth Conference," Joint Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association, Houston, October 2000. -----.

"Gender, Tokenism and the Construction of Elite Clergy Careers," Review of Religious Research, 38,3 (March 1997): 193-210.

Solheim, James. "Jubilee Theme Unifies the Work of the 73rd General Convention." The Episcopal Times. September, 2000, pp. 10-13.