Development of the Mission, Key Turning Points

A variety of events and influences—major turning points—called forth a deepening and broadening of WOC’s mission as it had been originally understood. In 1975, the understanding of the importance of getting women ordained was essentially a political understanding. This was the era of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Vatican Council II document, Gaudium et Spes, called for “reading the signs of the times.” Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical, Pacem in Terris, had pointed out that women were now ever more conscious of their dignity and worth. To seek the ordination of women in 1975 was to seek an acknowledgment of women’s full valuation—of their equality in the Church.

By 1978, only three years later, much had already changed. The organization had grown by leaps and bounds, to a membership exceeding three thousand, most of whom attended a second national conference, held in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1978. The program was headlined, “It’s time to lay to rest the heresy that women cannot image Jesus in the priesthood.” This was a response to the above mentioned Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Inter Insignores: A Declaration Against the Ordination of Women, which stated that women could not image Jesus, and therefore, could not be priests. At this point, the proponents of women’s ordination were not simply saying that ordination was necessary for women’s equality. Outraged by what they saw as a new and specious argument based on a faulty Christology, they responded in force with a burst of new scholarship, critiquing the hastily conceived “new theology” of the encyclical. This second conference in Baltimore was already stating the need for a renewed priestly ministry. It challenged the fundamentalism of the clericalist system.

A fter being fired up at this conference, a group of WOC members gathered broken chains, drove to the annual bishop's meeting in Washington, D.C., and made their presence known, much to the surprise of the bishops. Television cameras recorded the event and broadcast it on the evening news. Thus, WOC discovered the power of media coverage, and the value of the press conference, which WOC continues to use in its work for equality and justice for women in the church.

In response, the Bishops’ Committee on Women in the Church invited the demonstrating women to meet that day. In addition, Bishop Dingman stood on the floor of the bishop's meeting and called for dialogue with the Women's Ordination Conference on the issue of women priests. In 1979, the bishops met with WOC women and agreed to engage in dialogue on the issue. Talks were held at the Marriottsville Spiritual Center near Baltimore and in Chicago. Rosemary Radford Reuther later described them as "a non-meeting of the minds." "They don't want us, they never wanted us, they are never going to want us [ordained]," lamented Marge Tuite after one particularly frustrating session. The women actually walked out and boycotted the meetings for one day. The talks, nevertheless, resumed and continued for about three years. The impact of these real, live and priestly women on the bishops during these meetings is beyond measuring.

As a way of nourishing one another and to keep alive the issue of ordination, conferences were planned and held several times during the next twenty years. In the late 1970's, the office and staff moved to Rochester, NY and began publishing the NewWomen, NewChurch newsletter, which WOC continues to publish quarterly. The office staff traveled extensively, meeting with WOC supporters and helping them to organize local groups all around the country. In some years, interest in the organization grew. At other times it flagged. Money was always in scarce supply. An upswing in interest and membership seemed to coincide with papal visits to this country or with publications of statements against women's ordination.