POST SCRIPTS 411111•••••---- 11111 Catholic women priests There are women priests in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican denies it, male priests who have worked with them deny it. But they exist.
Probably the liveliest of the various journals and newsletters with which SEA OF FAITH has an exchange arrangement is Renew, the newsletter of the Catholic Renewal Movement (chaired, as it happens, by SoF member John Challenor). The January 1993 issue carries a fascinating report by Polly Pomerleau, one of a small group of American Catholics who visited Czechoslovakia to investigate reports that women had been ordained during the years of Communist persecution and were still practising their calling unofficially, underground.
Vaclav Maly, a priest in the official church, said there had been women priests but they were now all dead. A woman official told the visitors flatly: "There are no women priests and never have been". But the persistent Americans did track down three women priests who continue their work although told by the Vatican to "cease and desist" as their ordinations were "illegal and invalid". Their champion, Bishop Felix Davidek, who died in 1988 after 14 years of imprisonment and torture, has been declared posthumously insane by the Vatican. "The women are as yet unwilling to go public and join with others abroad to make a case for recognition," says Polly Pomerleau.
Gay abandon Renew also reports that the Anglican-run Lee Abbey centre in Earls Court, which has hosted many catholic Renewal Movement meetings, has told the movement it is no longer welcome since Renew ran an article by a member of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.
CRM's crime, it seems, was that it failed to urge its gay contributor to repent.
Our front cover cartoon has been lifted from Renew (which probably lifted it from some other journal).
Metaphorically speaking The Guardian seems to me to be the one national newspaper which regularly ponders the meaning of God, as distinct from merely reporting religious affairs or making jokes about vicars in knickers. A good example was by Colin Tudge on December 17, noting "the schism... between those who believe in a literal God, with literal miracles, and those who may concede that religions and churches can be valuable, with many worthwhile things to say, but believe that most theology is simply the attempt of pre-scientific peoples to explain the workings of a material universe which, without science, is inexplicable." Today, says Tudge, this schism no longer separates church-goers from the rest but runs through the churches themselves. There is a growing acknowledgement that "the metaphor of God provides a way of focusing difficult ideas for which there is no satisfactory vocabulary".
Dates, thanks, apologies A reminder that the 1993 Conference in Leicester is from July 27 to 29 (see the Newsletter). Late news flash! One of the principal speakers this year will be Karen Armstrong.
Thanks to all who have commented on the new-look magazine, not forgetting the caller who left an anonymous message on my answerphone: "Your magazine is crap"... ...and apologies to the handful of readers whose copies of the October issue had pages out of order. Our printer has atoned with a generous discount on this issue (and, hopefully, with a better collating system).
Apologies also to contributors whose pieces have had to be held over. Hope to fit you in next time.
And finally, an apology for failing to mention the title of David Blackburn's tree study which graced the front cover of our last issue. It is - wait for it - "Tree Study", executed in black chalk in 1985.