UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Nancy Fornasiero
During his high-profile visit to the United States this week, Pope Francis is receiving an overwhelmingly warm welcome — from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. And rightly so. Whether through his views on environmental stewardship, his tough-love critiques of excessively capitalist societies, or his compassion for the poor and marginalized, he has become the darling of liberals of all stripes.
And yet, there is still one extremely large group of “God’s people” who are not on the receiving end of Pope’s insistence for equality and justice. Despite the undeniable facts (half of the world’s Catholics are female; most Sunday pews are occupied by women; the vast majority of North American Catholics support the idea of women’s ordination) Pope Francis’ 2013 assertion that the “door is closed” to women in the priesthood has remained unchanged.
As Lisa Miller, in her thoughtful overview of Pope Francis’s track record on the status Catholic women, puts it: “Francis, for all his forward thinking, entirely supports this professional sidelining of females.”
Case in point: Just this past Saturday, on September 20 2105, Fr. Jack McClure was told by the Archbishop of his diocese that he would no longer be permitted to minister to his parish. Why? During a panel held in Philadelphia, PA at the Women’s Ordination Worldwide Conference he publicly supported the idea that qualified Catholic women should be allowed to be priests.
Roy Bourgeois, a former Catholic priest excommunicated for his refusal to tow the Church’s party line of discrimination against women, is no stranger to the personal sacrifices that accompany following one’s own conscience on this issue. Bourgeois, author of My Journey from Silence to Solidarity, has issued the following respectful yet pointed letter to Pope Francis just in time for his historic visit.
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