Remembrance and Celebration

by The Rev. Patricia Templeton

The summer of 1974, the year I graduated from high school, most of my energy was focused on getting ready to attend the University of Georgia in the fall. When I paid attention to the news, it was to follow the Watergate hearings that dominated the headlines and airwaves that summer.

On July 29, 1974, I watched on television as the House Judiciary Committee passed the second article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, accusing him of abuse of power

But the event of that day that was to have the largest impact on my life was just a blip on my awareness. On July 29, 1974, at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, 11 women were ordained to the Episcopal priesthood.

The impact of those historic ordinations on the church has been as monumental as the impact of Watergate on the government.

ENS photo by James Solheim

Participating in the Eucharist in Philadelphia's Church of the Advocate July 29 to celebrate their ordination to the priesthood were (left to right): Carter Heyward, Alison Cheeck, Nancy Wittig, Emily Hewitt and Alla Bozarth-Campbell.

"Touch each other and keep telling the stories of old bondage and how I delivered you," wrote the Rev. Dr. Alla Bozarth-Campbell in her poem, "Passover Remembered," which served as the first reading in the anniversary service.

And indeed the service was one of remembrance, as well as celebration.

Twenty-five years ago, there was no great procession into the old French Gothic church because of threats against the women who were to be ordained. Several of the women did not invite their families to the ordination for fear there would be violence.

The women’s fears were not unfounded. Protesters, "mostly white, male clergy in black clerical attire," some armed with stink bombs, stood angrily outside the church. The ECW stood by with buckets of water, ready to douse the bombs.

Even some who supported the idea of women priests did not support the ordination of the "Philadelphia 11" because women’s ordination had not yet been approved by General Convention. (That approval came in 1976.)

The Rev. Paul Washington, rector of the Church of the Advocate, acknowledged those criticisms in his welcoming remarks that day in 1974,

"Our actions today are untimely," he said, "But the dilemma is what is one to do when the democratic process, the political dynamics, and the legal guidelines are out of step with the imperative which says, ‘Now is the time!’

"What is a mother to do when the doctor says, ‘Your baby will be born on August 10,’ when on July 29 she has reached the last stages of labor and the water sack has ruptured?"

Dr. Charles Willie, the first black vice president of the House of Deputies and the preacher in 1974, called the ordinations "a holy act of defiance."

Willie was cheered that day when he spoke of justice delayed being justice denied. "As blacks refused to participate in their own oppression by going to the back of the bus in 1955 in Montgomery, women are refusing to cooperate by remaining in the periphery of full participation in the church in 1974 in Philadelphia," he said.

At the 25th anniversary celebration there was no furtive procession from the sacristy. Instead, the sidewalk outside the church was full of those waiting to process inside.

The procession began with "the church of our hope," with lay people representing the diversity of humanity and the church. They were followed by women bishops, leading their brother bishops and clergy.

Finally, as the organ played "Come, Labor On," the women ordained in 1974 and 1975 (four women in Washington, DC), and those who supported them, entered the church to applause and joyful tears. The joyous atmosphere of the procession was sustained throughout the two-and-a-half hour service.

But in her sermon, the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, who in 1974 was senior warden of Church of the Advocate and crucifer for the ordinations, warned that although there was much cause for celebration, women still are not full partners in the church.

"I want to try to speak a little truth here tonight," said Harris, the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. "I am going to be blunt."

Harris was particularly critical of the most recent Lambeth Conference, which she described as "last year’s decennial gathering of apostolic eagles — which included its share of turkeys."

The Lambeth bishops passed a resolution urging patience on the issue of women’s ordination, arguing against efforts that would require bishops to accept the ministry of women in their dioceses.

That resolution "totally ignored any positive impact the church has experienced through ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate over the past 25 years," Harris said. "It was a stunning denigration of the more than 6,000 women in orders from Utah to Uganda.

"Having tasted blood with the much amended resolution on human sexuality (which declared homosexuality as contrary to scripture), the princes of the church moved in for the kill on the people they really hold in low esteem — women," Harris said.

She said the Lambeth resolution allowed "the few U.S. bishops who openly oppose women’s ordination, and their sycophants, to now claim vindication, proclaiming themselves to be ‘in the mainstream of Anglicanism.’"

In reality, she said, those bishops "are swimming against the gospel tide of inclusivity, headed for the backwater eddies of patriarchal delusion."

There are many who seek to discredit those who dare to fight for an inclusive church, Harris said.

But, she said, the 25th anniversary of women’s ordination "should leave us committed to press forward with a renewed determination to work toward eradicating the sexism, racism, and homophobia which continue to permeate and pervade the church."

"Thanks be to God for our pioneer women, for the bishops who ordained and supported them, for this parish which welcomed them and the church gathered that 1974 day, for the clergy and laity who embraced their priesthood and subsequently paid the price, and for all who have followed in their courageous footsteps."

The anniversary service was indeed a time for those of us who have benefited from that day in 1974 to thank those — both lay and ordained — who paved the way.

The Rt. Rev. Robert DeWitt, retired bishop of Pennsylvania, who ordained the first women along with the Rt. Revs. Daniel Corrigan, retired suffragan bishop of Colorado, and the Rt. Rev. Edward Welles, retired bishop of West Missouri, said it best.

"The Philadelphia 11 belong with the likes of Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks," he said. "They are of that goodly company of women through history who have seen that in overcoming the restrictions which circumscribed their own lives they brought release to countless others. The human family is the beneficiary."

The Rev. Patricia Templeton is Associate Rector at
St. Timothy’s, Signal Mountain.