Update: Women's ordination. (Updates).

Toronto--The issue of women's ordination continues to be pursued by feminists. In our Jan/Feb 2002 edition, C.I., discusses Sister Joan Chittister (pp. 11-13) on this subject. In November 2001, she gave another address at the annual Call to Action Conference in Chicago. CTA gathers Catholics who describe themselves as "progressive;" i.e., wanting to progress beyond the Church's boundaries set by Christ and the Magisterium. Kevin Simpson of Vancouver, writing in the Island Catholic News, Jan. 2002, pp. 6-7, reports that "her appearance was greeted by a tumultuous five-minute standing ovation from the crowd in excess of 2000." Her remarks included a strong emphasis on the call to priestly ministry for all persons (emphasis ours).

P.S. Novalis Publishers, Ottawa/Toronto, promote Chittister's books in Canada.

P.P.S. Sister Joan Chittister highly recommends a new book by retired Bishop Remi de Roo, Diane Tolomeo, and Pearl Gervais of Vancouver Island entitled Biblical characters and the ennea gram.

Another strong supporter of Sister Joan and women's ordinations is Toronto's Catholic New Times (CNT). On December 2, 2001, the twice-a-month newspaper celebrated its 25th anniversary. Its lead article walked down memory lane and 25 years of publishing of what the collective itself considers to be an "alternative" voice in the Canadian Catholic media. Its publishing "collective" consists mostly of teachers and religious sisters who support "progressive" causes.

True to form, the anniversary edition also carried an article "Married Catholic Woman Ordained." The essay concerned the "ordination" of an excommunicated woman in Rochester, N.Y., Mary Ramerman, by a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in California, until recently a schismatic Catholic group dating from 18th-century Holland, but today also heretical in addition to being schismatic.

It was penned by Toronto's self-excommunicated Joanna Manning who, needless to say, described the "ordination" of poor Mary Ramerman as a triumph for womanhood. Writes Joanna: "Several speakers alluded to Mary's assumption of the full stole of priestly office as a casting off of the veil of Taliban-like confinement imposed on Catholic women by the Vatican" (CNT, p.10).

Among Canadian women sending their congratulations were Marie Bouchin, Carol Connick, Veronica Dunne, Kristen Goa, and Velma Fitzgerald, all of the Women's Equality Network, and Eloise Bucholtz of Peterborough who "made the stole offered to Mary Ramerman on behalf of Canadian women."

Among well-known American Catholic dissenters in attendance were Call to Action activists Loretto Sister Maureen Fiedler, and Chicago prophetess Edwina Gately. The latter will speak at the Centre for Spiritual Growth in Ottawa on April 26-28. at the Old Town Hall Community Centre. This centre is run by religious sisters who obviously know what they are doing.