“Woman, why are you weeping?”
Nicole Sotelo, M.Div
Text of keynote speech given at the Conversation and Celebration of Women Called event hosted by Women’s Ordination Conference
Santa Barbara, La Casa de Maria, February 18, 2006
Good morning. It is so good to be here with you to reflect on women’s ordination in the church and what ordination means to us today. The subject on which I have been asked to speak is “A Fresh Look at the Sacrament of Ordination.” However, if we are to take a fresh look, first we must take an old look at what has led up to these new perspectives. So this morning, I would like to divide our time together into three sections: First, let us take time to study a brief history of the sacrament of ordination. Second, let us take a fresh look at ordination through the perspective of some current the*logians*. Third, and finally, I invite us to reflect on what actions are necessary in order to bring forth this fresh vision and practice of ordination.
Before we jump into the first section on history, I’d like to set the foundation for our time together by inviting each of us to recall the scene from the Gospel of John where Mary Magdalene is sent by Christ to share the good news with her fellow disciples. As you know, when Mary arrives at the tomb of her friend, Jesus, she is startled to find the tomb empty. After seeing Jesus crucified, she can’t believe this final injustice has been added to her grief. She turns around with tears in her eyes and finds someone whom she believes to be a gardener standing behind her. The gardener, who is Jesus, asks, what I believe to be one of the most powerful questions of all Christian scripture. Jesus asks, quite simply, “Woman, why are your weeping?”
Jesus’ question, I believe, is still relevant for us 2000 years later because when a question like that is asked, its answer reveals human suffering, its answer reveals the injustice in our day. And questions like this must be asked because their answers tell us how we should think about and practice ordination and ministry that will respond to human suffering and injustice. So any discussion of ministry and ordination, including ours today, must begin with questions: “Woman, why are you weeping?” Who or what has been taken from you? Where is the suffering in our world today that causes us grief? What today causes us to weep? These questions must be asked because ordination that is not done in response to a community’s suffering and needs is not ministry, it is not ordination. It is self-service. And if we do ask the questions that will help us understand the suffering and needs in our world today, then we are formulating structures and perspectives of ordination and ministry that are not Christian, they are not following the model of Christ who attended to the suffering, who sought systemic change, who sought to build a community of disciples who would seek the kin-dom of God! So let us not be afraid to ask the questions that will help us to “ordain,” or order, our ministries so as to effectively respond to the needs that surround us.
Therefore, today, before we begin our reflection on ordination, let us begin by asking the questions. I imagine if we asked the question, “Woman, why are you weeping?” we might hear: “I am weeping because the nights are cold here in Pakistan where the earthquake shook my home to the ground and buried my husband and children.”
Woman, why are you weeping?
“I am weeping because my child died without medicines in a country where U.S. imposed-sanctions led to the deaths of half a million Iraqis.”
Woman, why are you weeping?
“I am weeping because my church had a eucharistic synod recently where the clergy leaders were more concerned about continuing the practices of patriarchy than the practices of breaking bread with the hungry and marginalized.”
And now I ask you, “Woman, why are you weeping?” What is it that you dearly love that has been taken from you or causes you to suffer? What causes you to weep? If you feel comfortable, please share aloud in a word or sentence what causes you to weep in your personal life or in the world today.
(pause)
I thank you for sharing your sufferings. May we keep these concerns in our hearts today remembering that these are the areas of weeping and mourning in our world that need ministry. These are the areas of concern in our world that must set our foundation if we are to talk about ordination.
History of Ordination
And so, with these needs in mind, now we can move to the first section of our time today: the history of ordination. If we begin 2000 years ago with a look at the gospels, we will not find the sacrament of ordination. Ordination is never mentioned, Jesus is not ordained, no disciple is ordained, no ritual or ordination ceremony is created. Although the Vatican now points to scripture as a reason not to ordain women, this claim is unfounded because although Jesus did not ordain women, he did not ordain any men, either! Jesus did not create any formal church structures such as a priesthood and he did not separate people into the categories of “laity” and “clergy.” In fact, the word “priest” is never used to refer to Jesus in the gospels and the only time we see the word “priest” in reference to Jesus is in the Letter to the Hebrews. It is used by its author to refer to Jesus as the new and last “High Priest,” ending a long line of Jewish leaders. For the author claims that priests are no longer necessary because there are no more sacrifices to be made. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice and is our final high priest.
So instead of pointing us toward ordination or priesthood as it is conceived today, Jesus pointed his followers, instead, towards a new kin-dom in which earthly castes and distinctions were no longer relevant. He pointed his followers toward a new vision that did not even include the notion of a concrete religious structure or church. In fact, the word “church” only occurs in one gospel, the gospel of Matthew. And there it is only used twice! Instead, the gospel writers chose to use the word “kin(g)dom,” not “church.” It appears that Jesus never meant to start a new religion or church with clerical hierarchies, instead, he wanted to help people see beyond their earthly divisions and distinctions towards a new, broader kin(g)dom of God’s justice, towards a realm where all are called to serve and minister.
If we continue our brief history on ordination and move from the gospels to the rest of Christian scripture, we still do not find any reference to ordination. What we do find is that on which ordination is supposedly based and that is ministry done in the spirit of Christ without distinction between who is eligible to minister. In Galatians, Paul writes, (quote) “now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith…. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (italics mine, Gal 3: 25, 28).
And it is in this same spirit that early ministry was conceived, with no disciplinarian or authority structure. All people had gifts of the Spirit and all people were called to use these gifts in ministry to their community. Although it must be said that ministry had a different connotation at the time. Today, when I hear the word ministry, I often think of ordained ministry, lay ministries, health care ministries, etc. But our English word “ministry,” has its origins in the Greek word diakonia, or Latin, ministerium, and is most often translated as “service.” Therefore ministry was and is about service. It is service according to the gifts one had been given, service done in response to the needs of the community, and all of this done with the intention of building up the community of Christ.
Continuing our look at Christian scripture, we see service, or ministry, varied throughout the early followers of Christ because it was based on local needs and people’s diverse gifts to meet these needs. From the textual data we have, it seems that the people who used their gifts in service were given various titles. The most common titles were prophet, teacher and apostle. In fact, Paul considered himself to be an apostle (Osborn 45). Today, when I hear the term “apostle,” I often think of the twelve apostles who were representations of the twelve tribes of Israel. However, as the*logian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza reminded the audience at the very first WOC conference, “All those Christians are apostles who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection and who were commissioned by the resurrected Lord to missionary work (I Cor. 9:4)” and “according to all four Gospels, women fulfilled these criteria of apostleship” (Schussler Fiorenza 96).
Now, if we continue our study of history and move from scriptures to the second or third century, we begin to see increasing use of the words deacon, presbyter and episkopos that later were associated with the titles we know today as deacon, priest and bishop. In the second century, we also see some Christian communities trying to assert their own theological perspectives over others by claiming “apostolic succession” (Osborne 81). Concurrently, there were Christian communities who used the term “prophetic succession,” instead, and these communities believed that all genders could be prophets and “ministers” (Schussler Fiorenza Conversation). [We know who won this battle of words. J]
Also, it wasn’t until the second century that we have evidence of an ordination ritual. The second century document, “The Apostolic Tradition,” brings us “the oldest known ordination ritual for episkopos, presbyter and deacon” (Osborne 117). This document also shares some interesting information about what was expected from an episkopos which, at the time, was someone who had pastoral, liturgical and/or administrative functions. At this time, an episkopos was required to have a developed moral character, teaching and preaching abilities, must be fifty years old and, as a general rule, the husband of only one wife (italics mine, Osborne 118). Additionally, this document reads:
Let the episkopos be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people. When he has been named and shall please all, let him, with the presbytery and such bishops as many be present, assemble with the people on a Sunday. While all give their consent, the bishops shall lay their hands upon him…. (italics mine, Osborne 120-1)
It is clear from this document that ordination at this time is not similar to ordination as we know it today. What is also clear is that history helps us to see that ordination was not something that has been with us since the time of Jesus, but that ordination evolved as ministry became increasingly restricted to men and a liturgical focus rather than encompassing the early service-leadership perspectives that were shared by most Christians.
At this time in our study of ordination’s history it is also important to understand how Greco-Roman culture influenced the language and practice for what is now a male-only ministry. The word “ordination” derives from the Latin “ordinare” that means “to create order” (Halter 12). However, instead of using the word to refer to how we order our diverse ministries, the word “ordination” developed from the Roman usage of the words “ordo” or “ordines” which referred to the hierarchical order of people in Rome “who were eligible for leadership positions in government” (Osborne 114-5). Therefore, when clerical leaders used the word “ordination,” they were aware that the word contained exclusive connotations. Similarly, the clergy chose Greco-Roman exclusionary terminology that separated men in ordained office from others by using the words “laity” and “clergy.” The word “laity” comes from the word “laikoi” which referred to those in Greco-Roman society who were not educated, “ordained,” and had no “order” within the established political structure. Therefore, when formal church leaders began to use the terminology “lay people” within the church, this language had the effect of “disestablishing” or “depositioning” non-ordained people “in terms of …a sociopolitical structuring within the Church” (Osborne 148). Lay people were then, essentially, not “ordered” or part of church structure.
Similarly, the word “clergy” comes from the word “‘kleros’ meaning a “group apart” (Osborne 148). The word “clergy” was used by the church to refer to its priests, its sacerdotes, its ‘sacred people’ and the divide between recognized and non-recognized ministers grew wider. Additionally, clericalization began to develop “as Constantine and other political leaders began giving clergy…special privileges” and distinguishing certain people as special or apart from others (Osborne 148).
From 300CE onward, church leadership rarely grows organically according to local needs and people’s gifts. Instead, the church models itself on an “ordered” imperial Greco-Roman society in which privileged men were given even greater privilege through an office and those who were not within this elite group were “dis-ordered,” “dis-ordained” from community life. And, as we know, we have remained a very “ordered” church to this very day where “ordained clergy” are still set apart from “laity” and recognized, commissioned ministry is restricted to an elite group of men.
Continuing our historical study, we need to ask, “So what is ministry like for women in the centuries after Jesus’ death?” Although there is evidence that there were women priests and bishops, there is a preponderance of evidence that depicts women in ministry as diakonos and, later, as deaconesses. One of the more famous and earliest examples comes to us from Romans 16:1-2. Here, Paul writes, “Now I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, being a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae, in order that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints….” By the third century, we see evidence of a special ordained office for female deacons, or deaconesses, and also an order of widows that had developed in the Eastern Christian communities (Madigan, Osiek 203). However, we must note that evidence of deaconesses is not always positive. Deaconesses are a reminder that the church was slowly edging women out of recognized ministry and relegating them to lower levels of office according to what was understood to be their inferior spiritual status and polluting sexuality. For example, in the fourth century document, the “Apostolic Constitutions,” we see the added office of “virgins” in church structure (Madigan, Osiek 107). As Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza writes “no longer [are] all women exercis[ing] leadership functions but only those who, as virgins and widows, transcended sex-roles” (Schussler Fiorenza 98). In 451 the Council of Chalcedon declared that a woman must be over forty years of age in order to be ordained a deacon, prompting some scholars to believe that this was created so as to keep menstruating women out of formal ministry. Finally, “after two condemnations, the Second Council of Orleans [in 533 CE!] acknowledged the existence of female deacons but wanted to put a stop to the practice (Madigan, Osiek 145).
Although the presence of women in formally-recognized ministry declines over the years, we have evidence of a pope confirming the practice of ordaining women deacons in a letter written to a Portuguese bishop in the eleventh century! Pope Benedict VIII writes to the Bishop of Porto in 1017, “we concede and confirm to you and to your successors in perpetuity every Episcopal ordination, not only of presbyters but also of deacons and deaconesses or sub-deacons” (Madigan, Osiek 147-8). The evidence is clear: women have always done ministry but recognition of this ministry has been suppressed through the centuries.
As women’s ministry become less visible in our church’s history and is forced into women’s communities and cloisters, men’s ministry become more prominent and continues to shift its focus. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Church continues to entwine itself with governmental structures, particularly the Frankish kingdom. As a result of power struggles and in need of protection, the Roman Church finds itself submitting to Frankish lords and recognized “ordained” ministry is dramatically affected. Within the Frankish lands, a local proprietor would build a church and appoint a priest to “minister” but that ministry was not akin to the ministry of Christ. Often, the function of a priest was not to serve the earthly needs of his community nor to speak out against the injustices of the day. Instead, the role of the “presbyter” at this time was to remain loyal to the proprietor, raise money for the upkeep of the church building, and ensure distribution of the eucharist which increasingly was seen to have magical powers. This shift in ordained male ministry lingers until the eleventh or twelfth centuries.
It is from this time in history that the priesthood and “ministry” became increasingly cultic and eucharist-focused, rather than service-oriented. It is believed that this eucharist-centered ministry, devoid of eucharist’s connection to the earthly community and its needs, has its roots in the “Frankish structuring of Church ministry, and “once this practice was theologized by the scholastic theologians, it became the main approach to priestly practice and theology for about seven hundred years” (Osborne 174).
During the course of these seven hundred years, the number of sacraments is set at seven for men, six for women. Now, during the middle ages there were movements of people who claimed the priesthood of all believers and prophetic gifts and tried to live a more inclusive, service-oriented ministry (Schussler Fiorenza Conversation). These centuries also saw the rise and schism of the Protestant reformers. In reaction to these movements, the formal Catholic leaders called the Council of Trent from 1545-63. This council reconfirmed a theology of male priesthood and emphasized a priesthood based on the eucharist as sacrifice rather than ministerial service. During the council “no mention of preaching the Word, no mention of leading the community is included” (Osborne 253).
New Understandings of Ministry and Ordination
The views on priesthood and the sacrament of ordination remained relatively similar from the Council of Trent to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is at this time that scriptural and historical research is done that offers a clearer picture of the early Jesus movement and, in turn, helps us to better understand early perspectives of ministry. Vatican II begins to reflect these new understandings in its documents and feminist and liberation the*logians along with growing justice movements help to propel new and just understandings of ministry and its place in the lives of all Christians.
So what are some of the new understandings of ministry and ordination? For this, let us depart from our review of ordination’s history and move into the second portion of our time today that includes a look at some of these fresh and evolving understandings on ordination. Let us remember from the beginning of our time today that any talk of ordination and ministry must arise from asking questions and understanding a community’s needs. It is only then that we can begin to formulate an accurate perspective and praxis on the sacrament of ordination that will build up the community and bring us closer to the kin-dom of God. Therefore, I will share four fresh perspectives on the sacrament of ordination that are rooted in liberation/feminist the*logians’ calls that ministry respond to the suffering around us and create a discipleship of equals that will effectively respond to our world today.
The first perspective I’d like to share with you is that the sacrament of ordination must be seen as an ordering of ministries and not a vertical stratification, or ordering, of people. We are ordered or “ordained” at baptism into the community of Christ and so the sacrament of ordination shouldn’t be a hierarchical re-ordering of our Christian community but an ordering and commissioning of our diverse ministries. The*logian, Richard Gaillardetz, reminds us of this and says that “the most fundamental ordering of the Church” does not occur at ordination, but “occurs at baptism” (Gaillardetz 35, OBP). He goes on to say that “baptism does not just make one a different kind of individual; it draws the person into a profound ecclesial relationship within the life of the Church as a follower or disciple of Jesus sent in mission to the world” and that “to be baptized is to be ‘ordained’ into a very specific ecclesial relationship along with all who profess” belief in Jesus Christ (Gaillardetz 35, OBP). We are fundamentally ordained and sent in mission at baptism and, therefore, the sixth sacrament should be about ordering our ministries—ministries of pastoral care, healthcare, art, education, government, etc.—in relation to community need so that we might help to bring about God’s kin-dom.
A second new perspective on ordination is that the sacrament of ordination must occur within a community and be responsible to that community’s needs. The*logian David Power states that candidates for ordination should “have their roots in communities…. [and] are responsible to their communities and some process of participation in appointment, accountability during tenure, and even judgment on failure within communities is juridically necessary and theologically justified” (Power 88-9, OBP). Although you may note that this and other perspectives I will share with you today are not necessarily new, the practice of this perspective is not readily evident in our church and, therefore, needs to be reaffirmed. It is interesting to note that Power spoke about this particular perspective in response to the massive revelations of sexual abuse and cover-up by formal church leaders. He believes that ministers must be commissioned by and accountable to their communities not only to better serve a community’s needs but also to safeguard against ministry’s potential to harm. It is for this reason that I find this to be one of the more powerful “new” perspectives on the sacrament of ordination.
A third fresh perspective is that the sacrament of ordination must be open to all Christians because Christ called all people to minister. Theo*logian Elissa Rinere writes, “The mission of the Church is described differently in various conciliar documents, but in all of them, consistently and clearly, the mission is outward and it is entrusted to all the baptized” (italics mine, Reiner 71, OBP). The*logian Thomas Rausch agrees that the mission of all the baptized needs to be reflected in the new perspectives of ordination and ministry. He says, “The traditional dichotomies—clerical and lay, religious and secular, institution and charism, ordained and nonordained—are not helpful and reinforce the false church/world dichotomy” (Rausch 61, OBP). He asks, “Can we speak of ‘ministries ordained and nonordained’? Or, even better, ‘ordered ministries’? A solid argument can be made that the Second Vatican Council was moving toward [this] more inclusive understanding of ministry” (Rausch 61, OBP). Indeed, we find this directly in many of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium states that all the baptized share in the “priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ” (Lumen Gentium 31) (Osborne 318). And let us remember that “all the baptized” who are called to priestly ministry include men and women, single and married, celibate and sexually active, heterosexual and homosexual, white and black and brown, young and old! Although some formal church leaders tend to give various reasons why some of these people should not be ordained according to scripture or tradition, we know according to the brief history I shared, that these reasons are unfounded. Tradition shows that women have been ordained and scripture shows that Jesus called all people to serve.
Finally, a fourth fresh perspective on ordination is that we need to be open to the possibility that the sacrament of ordination may look different in various regions of the world. If we are serious about responding to the needs of particular communities, particular sufferings, then those needs will influence how ministry and ordination is thought about and practiced. The*logian Elissa Rinere affirms the need for flexible universal structures of ministry “that will allow nations and regions to develop stable ministerial structures of their own” (Rinere 80, OBP). But she cautions that this requires a monumental shift in our thinking. She says, “Beneath this seemingly simple idea are very complex issues about the nature, role, and authority of Episcopal conferences, and the degree to which nations and regions can differ from one another structurally, since structural differences will denote some degree of theological difference” (Rinere 80, OBP). Rinere also believes that we may need to create structures that “provide a consistent and stable means of discerning and utilizing charisms of service for specific communities” while recognizing that charisms and ministries may not be life-long and that we should consider temporary commissions to meet today’s challenges (Rinere 81, OBP). Although she writes this with regards to “lay” ministry, one would hope these views might be applied to all ministry, without discrimination.
These four perspectives on the future of ministry and ordination are not exhaustive of the material available. Nevertheless, I believe, they are some of the most significant perspectives for us if we are to minister as Jesus called us, if we are to minister to the suffering and needs in our communities.
Five Actions to Build Movement Toward the Kin-dom of G*d
These perspectives are also significant for Women’s Ordination Conference. As an “ordination conference” we must be serious about educating Christians about the history and the new perspectives on ordination. We must be serious about living out these new perspectives, as well. Therefore, I now turn to the third and final portion of my reflection this morning that is to share five actions we can take to build a movement of Catholics that will take seriously our baptismal ordination and call to ministry so that together we will build the kin-dom of G*d.
First, we will only succeed in building an active church of ordained and ministerial Christians if we cease to think of ourselves as only an “organization,” and, instead, begin to think of ourselves as a “movement” that goes beyond organizational divisions and lines. We are part of a movement and, as such, we must seek collaboration with other peace and justice groups, with other women’s groups but, most importantly, with other church reform groups. And our collaboration must go beyond the boundaries of our fifty states to stretch internationally, as well.
Second, our movement faces a serious age deadline to which we must give our deepest attention. In the next 15 to twenty years, I would estimate that at least 70-80 percent of current church reform membership will no longer be living or in a condition to actively sustain the movement. We are faced with a crisis that we have only begun to address. Organizations such as Call To Action, Dignity, FutureChurch and our own Women’s Ordination Conference have all begun young adult programs of various sizes and with varying organizational support in the last ten years. As someone who has worked consistently with some of these groups for the last six years, I can report that we have made some gains in membership growth and commitment. However, we must continue to encourage, fund and actively work for the success of these programs and the continual integration of these programs within the larger organizations if we are to see the continuance of our work.
Third, our movement must dedicate itself to internal and external anti-oppression work. If we profess to be a movement for feminist justice, than we must be a movement of feminist justice. For example, if we advocate for equal ordination, then we must also believe in our own baptismal ordinations. It may sound simple, but patriarchy and kyriarchy have a way of making us forget our own baptismal ordinations, our own calls to ministry. We also must ensure that if we advocate for justice, then we are being just in our own movement, that we ourselves are dedicated to anti-oppression which includes anti-classism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, etc. within our own staff, board and membership in addition to the way we outreach to others.
Fourth, our movement must pay attention to two words: urgency and risk. We must be aware of the utter urgency with which we should attend to our work. We know the serious consequences to women’s lives if we do not attend to our work with urgency. Similarly, we must be aware of the serious risk we must accept to do this work. We must accept the risk to speak our beliefs about ordination in our homes, our parishes, our workplaces. We must accept the risk of putting our bodies where our beliefs are. Jesus accepted risk, Jesus acted with urgency. May we do the same.
Finally, the fifth consideration is that we must be a sustained, non-violent movement that is in this work of justice for the long haul. We must seriously look at the non-violent social activism that has arisen in the last 100 years and see how we might apply it to our own work. And we must recognize that any sustained, non-violent movement necessitates bodies—it necessitates engaging our membership in both prayer and protest and building our membership beyond what we have ever imagined.
These are the five areas to which we as a movement must turn our attention if we are to take seriously the lessons learned from the history of ordination and the fresh perspectives on ordination that call each of us to minister for God’s kin-dom of justice. Unfortunately, for too long we have not recognized our own baptismal ordination and call to ministry, it has been stripped from our understanding, and both we and our world have suffered because of this. For nearly 2000 years the question has been with us from the gospel of John, “Woman, why are you weeping?” And for close to 2000 years, women have been weeping and crying out to God because our ordination is not recognized, our efforts to serve have been challenged, and people have suffered because of the lack of women’s ministry. But for 2000 years the answers from the gospel of John have been with us, too. As you’ll remember Mary is weeping because she believes the body of Christ has been taken from her, but Jesus says, “no, the body of Christ has not been taken from you, the body of Christ is with you, it is you. You are now the body of Christ, go and tell the disciples the good news, I have called each of you to carry on my ministry. I have called each of you to build the kin-dom of God.
So, as we go forward today, let us remember that the fresh perspectives on ordination are really calling us back to the old perspective that Christ shared with us in the gospels: that although there is deep suffering, that all of us are called to minister to that suffering in the beautiful and diverse ways that God has gifted us; that all of us are called to build God’s kin-dom of justice and peace. And let us pray that if we live out this baptismal ordination and call to ministry, one day when we are asked the question, “Women, why are you weeping?” we will be able to answer, “We are weeping because there is finally justice! We are weeping, finally, for joy!”
* I have used asterisks in the words “the*logian” and “G*d” to call attention to the way these words have been used to refer to a person or divine being with male identity.
Works Cited and Used
Gaillardetz, Richard R. “The Ecclesiological Foundations of Ministry within an Ordained Communion” in Wood, Susan K. S.C.L. et al. Ordering the Baptismal Priesthood: Theologies of Lay and Ordained Ministry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Halter, Deb. The Papal “No”: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican’s Refusal of Women’s Ordination. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2004.
Madigan, Kevin and Osiek, Carolyn. Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Osborne, Kenan, OFM. Priesthood: A History of the Ordained Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.
Power, David N. O.M.I. “Priesthood Revisited: Mission and Ministries in the Royal Priesthood” in Wood, Susan K. S.C.L. et al. Ordering the Baptismal Priesthood: Theologies of Lay and Ordained Ministry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Rausch, Thomas P. S.J. “Ministry and Ministries” in Wood, Susan K. S.C.L. et al. Ordering the Baptismal Priesthood: Theologies of Lay and Ordained Ministry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Rinere, Elissa, C.P. “Canon Law and Emerging Understandings of Ministry” in Wood, Susan K.S.C.L. et al. Ordering the Baptismal Priesthood: Theologies of Lay and Ordained Ministry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Women and Catholic Priesthood: An expanded vision: proceedings of the Detroit Ordination Conference. New York: Paulist Press, 1976.
Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. E-mail Conversation, January 2006.
