Dominic's birthday: amidst Church scandal, give for women's ordination

As gift, I’m inviting donations to the Women’s Ordination Conference, for Catholic female priests/bishops and reformed Church structure.

I am prompted by sex abuse and its cover-up -- by the exclusively male Catholic hierarchy, but also, by all of us who give that hierarchy its power. By “all,” I mean Catholic and not, progressive and conservative, me and you. That hierarchy is the only one we imagine to represent/run the Church. Consequently, I have found, that hierarchy is the only one we invest in -- e.g., the only one society acknowledges as Catholic, and the only one Catholics fund. Not least, when that hierarchy says only men can be priests, we tend to think that they are (however unfortunately) accurate, ignoring (however few) women who have dared to be ordained. We thus inhibit women’s ordination throughout the Church. We can change that, and we can change that starting today.

Time and again, we call and hope and pray that the old male hierarchy does better next time. Sometimes we are surprised, e.g., by more sex abuse; sometimes we are all too familiar, e.g., with exclusively male clergy. And certainly the male hierarchy may eventually change, realizing that it can no longer afford scandals’ costs or priesthood eligibility restrictions or whatnot. But if we believe that the Church has only learned a lesson when its male clergy have learned it, then we believe Catholic authority is only that of Catholic ordained men, specifically older, supposedly celibate, supposedly not-gay men. And then we are part of the very beliefs that made for these injustices in the first place.

For my birthday, consider investing in the Church by investing in women’s ordination. Help build a Church that all of us can represent, run, and believe in. Donate and/or speak out here on Facebook, and in other spaces your friends can see, so that supporting women’s ordination is just as plausible as supporting any number of other Catholic efforts, for instance, embracing immigration and abolishing the death-penalty. After all, normalizing women’s ordination is key to funding it.

And even if you are not Catholic, please still consider supporting. For, I submit that you ought to believe that a healthy, positive Catholic church is possible and needed. If you don’t -- if you believe that only the sexist, homophobic Church is Catholic -- then you believe that Catholicism is fundamentally bad, so you are anti-Catholic. If Catholicism has a positive place in the world, then Catholicism is not the sexism we keep seeing. Imagine better, invest in it, and help others do likewise.

Finally, let me acknowledge that the more you have suffered/survived at the hands of the male Catholic hierarchy, the harder it may be to ask that you invest in the Church. I hope that we find opportunities, like this I think, to invest not in that self-destructive Church but in a new Church, a more authentically Catholic Church. I understand that this attempt is not perfect and am eager for dialogue about it.
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Thank you for helping me celebrate my faith and birthday.
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fb.com/donate/234275470592855/10217775036108075
WomensOrdination.org/donate
Goal: $1,000,000 by 9/5/2018