“Women, why are you crying?” [2011]

“Oh God, you have created us in your image and have endowed all people with intelligence, talents, the ability to dream dreams and the hope to follow them. Too often women have been denied opportunities to follow their dreams and Your calling. 

In the voice of Joan Chittister: ‘You are the voice of today’s Church.  Speak loudly!  You are the fire of today’s Church.  Burn brightly!  You are the hope for the Church now and for centuries to come.  Your name is right under the names of Moses and Judith, Esther and Joseph and Jesus.  Amen!!’”  From the petitions for the feast of Mary Magdalene

On Thursday, July 21, 2011, Call To Action [Capital District Branch] sponsored a Mass celebrating the life and message of Mary Magdalene, and honoring the role of women in the life of Christ.  This gathering, on the eve of the feast of Mary Magdalene, was held at The College of Saint Rose’s Hubbard Interfaith Sanctuary.

Mary Magdalene captures the imagination, and offers women and men of faith a model of feminine discipleship and ministry. As a heroic counter figure, Mary Magdalene shows what a woman’s role could be like if it were not for the prevailing masculine domination exerted by the Roman church. The existence of such a challenge to the present male culture of the Roman tradition is extremely significant: it arose from the deep conviction among Catholics across the world that women are worth so much more than what they are credited with in the official church.  The devotion to Mary Magdalen has been a clear manifestation of the latent tradition in the hearts of Catholics that knew women - as much as men – are called to full participation in the ministries of faith.

This devotion was apparent in Albany:  the July 21, 2011 service was beautiful, filled with spectacular music, prayer and liturgy, and with the Body

 and Blood of Christ.  Friends from the ministries assisted in the celebration, along with our sisters and brothers from Call To Action.   The reflections both during and after the service brought to mind the marginalization of many by the Roman church.  However, the overriding message and spirit of the evening – especially while listening to a toddler sing and dance around the worshipers and watching the children who participated in bringing up the gifts – was one of great hope!!!

Thank you, Call To Action, for bringing us together so beautifully for this occasion!

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her.

- John 20:1-2, 11-18

We can think of no better way to honor this occasion then to quote from the Bible:

My lover spoke and said to me,
"Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.

See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.

The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.

-- Song of Solomon 2:10-13

I never, ever imagined that I would in my lifetime utter those words.  

Maryknoll.  "Making God's Love Visible."  My family - so many others - knew the truth of that slogan since we were infants.  The order was such a tremendous source of personal pride as I was growing up.  Its members' actions provided us throughout our lives with a goal, something to strive for every day.  Around them, we sensed what must have been the same compassion, love, skill, friendship, depth and understanding that Christ had.  Our dear Maura, a giant in friendship, known for that infectious smile and effortless sacrifice, still looms large in my life, and the lives of others.  I recall often and fondly our visits to Ossining, the stories from those who not only saw so much of this world, but DID so much for those in need in this world.  December 2, 2010 I spent part of the day in Ossining with Maryknoll Sisters, celebrating the lives of Maura and Ita and honoring the tradition of service and love and search for justice for the marginalized for which the order is known.    

In a letter dated March 18th, 2011, Maryknoll's Fathers and Brothers' Superior General Fr. Edward Dougherty and Secretary General Fr. Edward McGovern sent a letter to Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, giving him fifteen days to "publicly recant" his support for the ordination of women into the priesthood.  Absent the public recantation, Fr. Roy would face dismissal from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.  The letter also threatens that the dismissal would be sent to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith [once led by Josepf Ratzinger] with a request for laicization.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois is no stranger to making God's love visible.  I encourage all to read Jamie L. Manson's piece in NCR, entitled "Roy Bourgeois' Priesthood Can Never Truly End."  Roy - like so many others from Maryknoll - put his [or her] money where their mouths are.  As Manson stated:

"He won a purple heart for his service in Vietnam.

He lived and worked among the poor in Bolivia for five years.

When his friends, Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, along with two other women, were raped and murdered in El Salvador, he became an outspoken opponent of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

He has served nearly five years in federal prison for non-violent protests.

And now Fr. Roy Bourgeois has been told that he no longer has a place in the community of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

For more than a hundred years, the name Maryknoll has been synonymous with ministries of justice, peace, and care for the world’s most marginalized. But, as is the case with so many church institutions, their fight for justice is a strictly external exercise. These days there seems to be little possibility for justice to roll down within the internal structures of the Catholic church.

Few Roman Catholic priests in this country today have risked as much as Bourgeois has to live out the gospel. He answered Jesus’ call to be a peacemaker; he has an insatiable hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Fewer Roman Catholic priests have dared to apply their high-minded social justice theories to the demoralization and marginalization of women by the church that they serve.

One wonders to what extent Bourgeois’s decades of witnessing of suffering and violence gave him the eyes to see injustice and the courage to voice his dissent regardless of the risk."

What earned this feeble indictment to this true servant of our Lord, a 44-year Maryknoll member?  Janice Sevre-Duszynska followed through her calling to serve, and in 2008 her life-long call to ordination was realized. Fr. Roy, her friend, attended the ordination ceremony and offered the homily.  Shortly after the celebration, Fr. Roy was told by Maryknoll that had incurred a "latae sententiae," or automatic excommunication for his participation in the ordination.  Fr. Roy's actions could easily been explained away by him as an oversight caused by ties to a friend.  Easily enough, he could have 'gotten out of it,' by saying he took part, and he now knows he should not have.  However, anyone familiar with Fr. Roy and his lifelong commitment towards ending injustices - whether they be the injustices of poverty, the effects of financing and training oppressive foreign military officers, or the denial of a person a calling to the Sacrament of priesthood just because they were not born a man - knows that he would not [as so many are] shy from this right thing.

Fr. Roy has been inspiring for decades.  His fight now similarly inspires.  It never ceases to amaze, in this time of clerical scandal and scarcity, that the Roman Church remains with its richly robed back turned on such a fabulous pool of talent, our women of faith.  Fr. Roy led by example.  Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, too, could have taken this lead, and honored justice in the form of an inclusive Church.  Alas, the heroism of the moment belongs to Roy, not his former order.  Yet, what a tremendous disappointment.

Maybe we can find an explanation in what we have discussed in the ministries over the years - and what was recently discussed by Roy during a panel discussion following the recent premiere of the documentary Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, which chronicles the struggle for women’s ordination in the Catholic Church:  many priests fear losing their jobs, assignments, pensions, and sacramental power - and risk the wrath of Rome - if they dare speak out against the sham, and in favor of total clerical inclusiveness and the ordination of women.  Manson was at that panel discussion, and recalls Roy stating that he chose to follow his conscience - yet again - this time by publicly supporting women’s ordination in spite of the possible consequences, those which he now faces.  He said: "I’d rather eat at a soup kitchen and be free rather than not do something that I’m called to do."  Manson said: "[...] if you listened to Bourgeois during the panel, the only scandal he seems to experience is his embarrassment over not speaking out sooner on the issue of women’s ordination. “I just feel bad it took me so long,” Bourgeois admitted sheepishly."

I encourage you for forward this piece to friends and family.  Also, write to Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers to express your outrage.  Letters should be addressed to Superior General Fr. Edward Dougherty and Secretary General Fr. Edward McGovern, at:

Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
Maryknoll, New York   10545-0344

Shame on you, indeed, Maryknoll Father and Brother.  We carry our faith in the dying days of the Church as we know it.  Vocations dwindle while the institution continues to dawdle with this male-driven hierarchy that has proven - yet again - it's well-honed skills at getting things horribly wrong.   

Nothing in this story has anything to do with what Christ has done on this earth; except, of course, for everything that has been done by Roy Bourgeois:  attending the needs of the marginalized; working for justice; standing - as Manson says - in "solidarity with the women who have been told by the Catholic hierarchy that God cannot work sacramentally through them."  He continues:  "The hierarchy acts as though it has the power to reject and invalidate the vocations of Bourgeois and all of the women denied the opportunity to function as priests. They forget, however, that the calling, and the holiness that flows from it, comes from God alone. Those who are truly called by God can never be prevented from touching the lives and transforming the hearts of God’s people."

May others find the strength to follow your example and lead.  May our church finally see beyond the hocus-pocus, and the Way of our Lord.     

Roy Bourgois, "Making God's Love Visible," indeed.  

God bless you, Roy.  Thank you.  Know, you will never be alone. 

posted by michael c. clarke, march 31, 2011

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This year, on the 30th anniversary of their deaths, we invite you to remember their stories as well as the lives of other martyrs, including Father Rutilio Grande and Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the thousands of anonymous people who suffered persecution, torture, and death in El Salvador in the 1980's.  On December 1, Michael Clarke, from Glenmont New York, a cousin of Maura's, helped facilitate a discussion on Maura's life, work, beauty, and the martyrs' relevance thirty years after their deaths.

This powerful video short was prepared by Loyola University Maryland's Campus Ministry and Center for Community Service and Justice.