JOHN SHEA LETTER TO ARCHBISHOP KURTZ - FEBRUARY 2016

Dear Archbishop Kurtz,

The Beginning of Lent, 2016

I am writing to you and to all the ordinaries in the United States to ask you to discuss at your next assembly a core issue of structural re- form in our church—ecclesia semper reformanda—an issue that contin- ues to disrespect every aspect of our identity and mission: the decision to see women as not worthy of ordination to the priesthood.

Of all the things that Pope Francis has said and done, the way he opened the Synod on the Family in 2014 was perhaps the most extraor- dinary: he asked the bishops to speak “freely,” “boldly,” and “without fear.” On the one hand, this exhortation is incredibly shocking, that he would have to ask his fellow bishops—grown men and the church’s teachers—to speak honestly with each other. On the other hand, given the atmosphere of the Vatican where honest dialogue can have such negative consequences, his exhortation was not only necessary but even a modest sign of hope in our not-very-relational church.

If you believe that the ordination of women to the priesthood is vital for the integrity, mutuality, and viability of our church, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you find there is nothing in Scripture or tradition that is prejudi- cial against women or that precludes their ordination to the priesthood, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you know that the actual history of ordination—of women as well as men—needs to be acknowledged and carefully understood by you and your fellow bishops, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you know that any given woman is as religiously mature and able to provide pastoral care as any given man (please see the enclosed letter), I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If seeing women and men either through a “complementarity” lens or in light of precious “theological symbolism” is not pertinent to women’s ordination, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you believe the letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, arrested dialogue on the ordination of women at a time when it could have been open, intelli- gent, and fruitful, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you see the letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, as an historical expla- nation of ordination rather than a theological explanation (please see the enclosed letter), I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you think the theological explanation declared by the Vatican in the 1970s and 1980s—that women cannot be ordained because they are “not fully in the likeness of Jesus”—would be silly if it were it not so he- retical, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you know that the church’s opposition to the ordination of wom- en is understood—inside and outside the church—as affirming women’s inferiority and as justifying domestic violence and other atrocities against women, I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If you understand why so many of the adult faithful in this country are leaving the church in droves over the injustice of women barred from priesthood—if you see that a “patriarchal Jesus” is a colossal contradic- tion—I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

If the church’s current practice seriously undermines our God’s re- lational Three-in-Oneness—if a huge patriarchal plank is stuck in the church’s eye, worshipping the Father as male, the Son as male, and the Holy Spirit as male—I ask you to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

Archbishop Kurtz, if you want our church—including the domestic church—to walk proudly on two feet instead of imitating patriarchal cul- ture and hobbling around on one and if you know that our church will never be fully in the likeness of Jesus until women are fully in that like- ness, please—honoring the human and the divine—have the courage to speak freely, boldly, and without fear.

Sincerely,
John J. Shea, O.S.A.

P.S. Enclosed is a letter I mailed to all the ordinaries in the United States at the beginning of Lent in 2014.