Female Iowa Priest Says Catholics 'Ready for This', Des Moines Register, June 21, 2011

Female Iowa Priest Says Catholics 'Ready for This'

Des Moines Register
June 21, 2011

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110621/NEWS/106210350/-1/AMES/Female-Iowa-priest-says-Catholics-ready-

Mary Kay Kusner leads Mass Sunday in Coralville, where her congregation worships twice a month. She has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

Mary Kay Kusner, Iowa's first Catholic “womanpriest,” leads Mass Sunday at an Episcopal church in Coralville

Coralville, Ia. - Mary Kay Kusner says a sense of social justice drove her to become Iowa's first "womanpriest."

She is a priest in the Roman Catholic tradition, but the church forbids female clergy, so she has been excommunicated from the church.

Kusner said there was another consequence to her ordination: "I had never planned to grow a church," she said.

A year later, the 51-year-old Iowa City woman is doing just that. Kusner, a married mother of four, marked the first anniversary after her controversial ordination by leading Mass for about 20 people Sunday afternoon in Coralville.

What started as a small group of about 10 people meeting regularly in homes has now grown into a community called Full Circle, with 25 to 30 core members who attend the twice-monthly Masses led by Kusner, and another 50 supporters on the mailing list.

Regenia Nicolosi, a bishop in the Roman Catholic womenpriests movement, ordained Kusner in June 2010 at a ceremony attended by nearly 300 people at First Christian Church in Coralville. About two dozen clergy members from churches throughout the Iowa City area were in attendance, Kusner said.

"I can remember having fear and trepidation of what it was going to mean," said Kusner, who works as a chaplain at University of Iowa Hospitals. "But actually, it's been a real affirmation that people are really ready for this, that so many people who grew up Catholic are ready for this."

The Davenport Diocese issued a statement in the weeks preceding her ordination reaffirming the church's condemnation of the practice. Bishop Martin Amos said that any ordained woman or anyone involved in the ordination of women is automatically excommunicated.

More than 100 women have now been ordained in the worldwide movement, which reportedly began with the secret ordination of seven women in 2002 in Germany by Catholic bishops.

The organization says those first ordinations gave its subsequent ordinations legitimacy by following "apostolic succession." But last year the Vatican added the ordination of women to a list of the most serious crimes against the church.

Since August, Kusner has been presiding over Sunday afternoon Masses at New Song Episcopal Church in Coralville.

For some Full Circle members, the community has become their primary church. For others, it's a supplement to Sunday morning Mass elsewhere.

Mary Nappi grew up Catholic, but she said because she is gay, she had been "sort of ushered out" of her church. She has been attending Full Circle services since September.

"I had a double lung transplant in November, and she personally and the community itself has helped both my partner and I get through the surgery and everything afterward, "Nappi said of Kusner."