Remembering (Nasty) Women (Witches).

On this day in history, October 30, 1971, 60 women, clergy and laity, gathered at Virginia Theological Seminary,  just outside our national capital, to organize the effort at the 1973 General Convention to allow access to all three orders of ordination in the church - deacons, priests and bishops - to women. 

(NB: Women had been ordained deaconess since 1889 but not considered within the diaconte until 1968 and began being ordained deacons alongside men in 1971.) 
 

A time line of the Ordination of Women in The Episcopal Church can be found here.

They crafted a letter to then Presiding Bishop Hines, stating their shock and distress over the latest meeting of the House of Bishops in the Pocono Mountains which voted to refer the "issue" to yet another commission to "study". 
 

Over the years, the good Bishops had commissioned, received and apparently forgotten a whole series of "studies" including a "blue ribbon" study done as recently as 1967.

The letter to Presiding Bishop Hines, signed by all 60 women present, expressed their shock and disappointment and informed him that none of them would serve on the commission if asked. They also told him that they would not encourage any other woman to serve on the commission, since the time for study had long past.

They also requested (and eventually received) money from the Board of Theological Education (BTE) to hold a series of regional conferences for women and men about the ordination of women.

In signing the letter, the group constituted itself as "The Episcopal Women's Caucus." 
 

You can read Marge Christie's history of The Caucus here. 

Let me press "pause" here for a moment, to let that sink in.

Forty-five years ago - today - sixty women of absolutely no standing or authority in the church wrote to the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and said 'Fie!" on your special commission. 
 

These sixty women of "low estate" proclaimed to the man who held the highest office in the institution that they were boycotting his special commission and encouraging every woman in the church to do the same.

Oh, they said, and we want you to give us money so WE the PEOPLE - you know, the ones we 'talk' about as "the priesthood of all believers" and refer to in the invitation to the Service of Ordination with the words, "God willing and the PEOPLE consenting"? - can bring "the issue" to the people for consideration.

What a perfectly uppity thing to do, right?

Or, in current parlance these were some "nasty women". 
 

Herstory notes that those uppity, nasty women were not successful, first time up at bat. Indeed, they were a colossal failure. The resolution they crafted to change the canons of the church to allow for women to be ordained deacons, priests and bishops, which they took to General Convention in Louisville, 1973, failed miserably. 

The vote in the House of Deputies was more profoundly anti-woman (in a vote-by-orders of the clergy) in 1973 than it was in 1970.  That seemed like prima facia evidence that bishops had been very busy ... um... "talking" with their clergy.

It was devastating, simply devastating. That was so because, in part, they were naive.

I recall Marge Christie, one of the founders of The Caucus,  saying, "You know, we really thought that if we just had the opportunity to allow women to tell their stories, people would see the strength of their call and do the right thing."
 

I think - I'm not absolutely 100% certain, but I think - this was the moment when merely "uppity women" became strong, bold, brave, convicted, focused - and otherwise "nasty" - women. 
 

It was time to use the rules to break the rules and bring about justice. 
 

If the theological argument was one of "ontology"; if the presumed presenting barrier to the ordination of women was that they did not possess "sufficient ontological matter to be an authentic bearer of a sacerdotal presence," then, by God, it was time for the incarnation.  

Or, as my dear friend Ed Bacon has said, "I'm so glad Mary didn't wait for the formulation of a Doctrine of the Incarnation before she said 'Yes" to God."
 

On July 10, 1974, seven women who were deacons met with four bishops to discuss a possible ordination. A date was set for July 29, 1974 - the Feast of Mary and Martha of Bethany - where, at 11 o'clock in the morning,  eleven women who were deacons were "irregularly" ordained to the priesthood at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, PA. 
 

There were supposed to have been 12 and there's a backstory about "good deacons" and another strong letter from another strong woman to another bishop which I'll leave for another time.

I want to hit the "pause" button again and ask you to let that all sink in.  

The event we so easily refer to as "The Philadelphia Eleven" happened three (3) years after sixty (60) uppity women of little or no institutional standing sent a letter to the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, rejecting his offer to "study their issue" and asking for money for the "priesthood of all believers" to determine the issue of ordination for women. 

That ordination - and the ordination of women in the church - would not be "regularized" and the canons changed to allow for the ordination of women for another two (2) years. 

It was not until General Convention in Minneapolis, in September 1976, that the canons were changed. Women began to be ordained "regularly" on January 1, 1977 - six years after the founding of The Episcopal Women's Caucus.
 

Just pause for a moment and put yourself in their sacristy slippers. Imagine waiting two years after your ordination to be declared "legal" and "legitimate". 

Let that sink in.  
 

Now, add to that and understand that in those intervening two years the church absolutely erupted in turmoil. Churches flew their Episcopal flags upside down and at half-mast - a combination of the symbols of international distress and a significant death.  (I am not making this up.)
 

Male clergy who allowed the newly ordained to preside at Eucharist at the altar in their churches were brought up on ecclesiastical charges for "disturbing the peace and well being of the church". (Because, you know. prophetic action never disturbs the peace.)
 

On August 18, 1974, Dr. Charles Willie, the first African American to be Vice President of the House of Deputies, resigned his position in protest of a statement of the House of Bishops which called the ordinations in Philadelphia "invalid"; he referred to the statement as "a blatant exercise of male arrogance." (And, it was, but there was more to come. To wit - )

On October 27, 1974,  a special service was sponsored by the National Council of Churches and held at Riverside Church in NYC to honor and support the Philadelphia ordinations. A  collection was made and sent to Presiding Bishop Allin for the the Presiding Bishops Fund for World Relief. 

Bishop Allin returned the check because of its "tainted" genesis. (You can NOT make this stuff up.)

There's so much more of the story to tell. So much that makes me ashamed of my church. So much that gives me hope for the church.  
 

So much that is the stuff - the good, the bad and the ugly - of the Body of Christ.  
 

As Jack Spong has said, "The church will die of boredom long before it dies of controversy." 
 

But, here's the lesson learned: 'Incarnation beats Idea' any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

Let me pause and let that sink in: "Incarnation beats Idea". 

Jane Holmes Dixon, Cynthia Black, Mary A.R. MacCloud

After July 29, 1974, ordained women were no longer an abstract idea. 
 

They were a reality. 
 

They were incarnate. 
 

Their "ontological matter" was, in fact, "sufficient" to be an "authentic sacerdotal bearer," because, well, there they were. 
 

Women. And, ordained priests. 

Whatcha gone do now, bro?

Or, as the astute, modern theologian, Woody Allen, once said, "Showing up is 80% of life."
 

I encourage you to read Marge's history of The Caucus. as well as all the many wonderful books that have been written, some by the Philadelphia Eleven themselves. 

I still strongly recommend as an excellent place to start Carter Heyward's, "A Priest Forever" and Alla Bozarth's "Womanpriest."
 

All these books on the ordination of women in The Episcopal Church provide study lessons in religious community organizing which, I think, honors the past and serves the future of this amazing church of ours. 

I write this not just to honor and celebrate The Episcopal Women's Caucus, an organization I was privileged to serve as President/Convener for over a decade, but also because I feel it is more and more imperative that we remember our herstory. 
 

I know. That's probably just the old woman who has quite suddenly (and, without invitation, I might add) taken up residence in my body, talking that mess again. But, I have to admit that I am especially alarmed when I listen to young, newly ordained women who have absolutely no idea about the struggles which allowed the privilege of their status of ordination. 
 

Indeed, as privilege is of't want to do, these women seem completely oblivious to the privilege which is theirs which was hard fought and well won by their sisters.
 

I watch them and I listen to them complain about the flagrant injustices in opportunities and compensation, the insensitivities demonstrated by their bishops and rectors - and the harsh judgements and incessant demands of some of their congregations -  as they try to juggle priesthood and parenthood. 
 

Oh,  hear me clearly: This is not to deny that the struggle is real. It is. Very real.  
 

They complain and seek solace from other clergy, and everyone is empathic and pastoral, but when someone raises the possibility of organizing to change diocesan policy around things like employment, compensation or parenting leave, it stops the conversation immediately. And then, a few months later, someone else posts a complaint and the cycle repeats itself. 
 

Some progress has been made in a few dioceses but the overwhelming status of women in the church is, on average, pretty dismal. Sexism and misogyny continue their powerful presence in our structures and attitudes.
 

I write that even as I celebrate that the church has elected two women to the episcopacy this year alone -  two diocesans, back to back (Spokane and Indianapolis). 

And, and, and... besides the first African American diocesan bishop to be a woman, this is the first time a woman diocesan has been followed by the election of another woman diocesan - the first time that's happened in the church since 1996. (That's 20 years but who's counting?)

That's progress at the top levels of the church.  Which is progress. Undeniably.
 

In my experience (see paragraph above), "trickle down theology" is no more effective than its cousin in economics. That said, I am "a very prisoner of hope" that, as we move past the novelty of "firsts" and even "seconds" and reach a "critical mass" of women in the House of Bishops, the status of women throughout the church will improve.

It's always astounding to me when, at the Booths at General Convention, at least two to three women a day look at the banner proclaiming, "The Episcopal Women's Caucus," and, befuddled and bewildered, ask, "What's that?" 
 

I didn't attend the last General Convention, but I'm told the same thing happened - to the same astonishment of the members of The Caucus. 
 

I actually, physically cringe - because it causes actual emotional, spiritual and physical pain - when I read what some women write in social media. This was posted just the other day about the first African American woman to be elected a Bishop Diocesan, "I just like to see qualified candidates. I don't look so much as to color and gender and race. Those things are divisive." 
 

Le sigh.  See also: The perils of being naive.

The Witch of Endor

I write this, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the founding of The Episcopal Women's Caucus to point us to another "nasty woman." 

Tomorrow, October 31st, is the lesser feast of All Hallow's Eve (BCP 106). 
 

In some circles - mostly inhabited by women, it is the even lesser feast of the Witch of Endor.  Indeed, her story (1 Samuel 28:3-25) is included as the first reading of All Hallow's Eve. 

What I love about this story is that it raises lots more than the ghost of Samuel.  Like?  Well, like the fact that misogyny in Endor is as old as the Garden of Eden.
 

Power that can't be controlled must be Evil and if the power of a woman can't be controlled, she must be the embodiment of Evil. The 'woman' of Endor is considered the 'witch' of Endor. 

Women who don't know their place are "uppity".

Women who know how to play political hardball with the big boys are "nasty" and have "so much hate in their heart" they should "lock her up" and any contribution she could make must be "tainted."
 

As we head into this sacred time of facing into what scares and frightens us as we prepare to remember the dead, I ask that you hit the 'pause' button in your life to remember the women.

Remember them and give thanks for all the women / witches in your life and our lives of faith: The Witch of Eden. The Witch of Endor. The Witch of Bethlehem (who had to become a Virgin for her story to be heard and believed!!!). The 60 Witches of The Caucus. The 11 Witches of Philadelphia. The four Witches of Washington. 

Remember that, without a woman named Mary of Bethlehem, God could not have achieved God's greatest creation in the sacrificial, salvific incarnation of Jesus.

And then, do something bold and brave and risky yourself.
 

Say 'no' to same-old-same-old.
 

Say 'yes' to possibility.
 

Be 'nasty' your very own badself and demand the financial resources which will  enable the people of God to remove walls of ignorance and intolerance and build bridges of knowledge and understanding.

Know that you are standing on a very firm foundation.
 

You are standing on the shoulders of giants who were the 'nasty' women of their day. 

You are held in the arms of some pretty amazing witches.

Now, just hit 'pause' for a moment and let all that sink in.

A luta continua

Icon written by the Rev'd Dr. Ellen Poisson, OSH

Today's liturgical calendar marks the 68th Anniversary of the ordination of Florence Li-Tim Oi, 李添嬡 , the first woman ordained priest in the Anglican Communion.

Meanwhile, back in the Church of England, the Bishops are busily preparing for a Synod in February in which the issue will be discussed concerning whatever is to be done with these "troublesome" women clerics who feel called to the episcopacy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York have whipped up a batch of what The Guardian's Andrew Brown describes as a "breathtaking" fudge.

The archbishops envisage that the Church of England, once it has female bishops, will continue ordaining men who do not accept these women, finding them jobs they will deign to accept, and promoting some of them to be bishops who will work to ensure the continued supply of male priests who refuse to accept female clergy. In fact, the church will pay three bishops (the formerly "flying" sees of Ebbsfleet, Richborough, and Beverley) to work full time against their female colleagues, and to nourish the resistance.

Of course, the good bishops' proposal will run amok of English employment laws but they are, after all, bishops - nay, verily Archbishops - in the State Religion. And, they are, after all, men who know what is best for the church.

Meanwhile, The Rt Rev’d Wallace Benn, the Suffragan Bishop of Lewes on the south coast of England, has written a recommendation for a book supporting the legalisation of marital rape and accusing the Queen of breaking her Coronation Oath.

I am not making this up.

You can read about it here, but let me give you a taste of this ancient porridge of misogyny.

The book in question, Britain in Sin by well-known fundamentalist Stephen Green of ‘Christian Voice’, accuses the Queen of breaking her Coronation Oath by signing into law 57 pieces of what Green describes as ‘unrighteous legislation’ which he claims offend Biblical principles. These include the Criminal Justice Act 1994, which introduced the offence of marital rape. ...... Green claims that “the marriage service of the Book of Common Prayer” establishes “a binding consent to sexual intercourse” and a married woman therefore has no right to refuse unwanted sexual advances from her husband. The book also criticises the 1970 decision to abolish a man’s right to petition a court for “the restoration of conjugal rights”.

Green also supports the economic exploitation of women, describing the Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Acts 1975 & 1986 as unbiblical. Concering women in the workplace, Green says in Britain in Sin “[t]hat mothers should deprive their men-folk of work is a national scandal.”

Benn recommended Green’s book in glowing terms, saying, “This makes interesting and disturbing reading. We desparately need to understand, as a nation, that our Creator knows what is best for us, and to return to His way as the best way to live.”

If I didn't know better, I'd say that someone from Monty Python's Flying Circus has written an episode of Downton Abbey for Lambeth Palace.

Can't you just hear the Archbishop of Canterbury saying one of the Dowager Countess' lines: "Don't they know that no one wants to kiss a girl in black"?

To which the Archbishop of York will respond, "When she marries, her husband will tell her what to think."

The Bishop of Lewes will sigh deeply and say, rather wistfully, "In moments like these it might be good to send her abroad. One can always find an Italian that isn't too picky".

Canon Kenneth Kearon, never too far from the forces of power and authority but never possessing either himself, will appear distressed and, shielding his eyes whilst glancing up to the chandelier, say, “I couldn’t have electricity in my house, I wouldn’t sleep a wink. All those vapors floating about.”

Li-Tim Oi must be rolling in her grave.

Please allow me to share with you some of Li-Tim Oi's story.

Florence Li-Tim Oi was born on May 7, 1907 in Hong Kong, China. At the turn of the century, China was on the brink of dramatic change that would lead, unpredictably, to a highly-charged political revolution.

In the fishing village of Aberdeen, Hong Kong, however, the old way of life persisted as it had for centuries. At that time - as it is today and continues in many countries - baby boys were highly prized. Not so were girls. A bowl of ash could be at hand to smother unwanted new-born girls.

Not so with Li Tim-Oi's father. He gave his infant the name Tim-Oi, “another much beloved girl.”

Mr. Li also did not have any of his daughters’ feet bound like other girls of the educated and landed class, who, for centuries, had their feet bandaged from a very young age to keep the feet small and delicate, and to mark their station in society, as well as to confine and restrict their lives.

He also provided education for his daughters. Tim Oi completed her primary schooling at 14, but pursuing her studies was out of the question.

Her father had to provide for two wives, five sons and three daughters. And while Tim-Oi was a much beloved daughter, the boys had priority when it came to secondary education.

Tim Oi remained dutiful but fervently prayed that she be afforded the same opportunity as her brothers. She reminisced: “I used to pray to my heavenly father: if my father can afford to educate my brothers, perhaps at the end I could go to continue my education as well.”

Her prayers were apparently heard. After all her brothers finished their studies, her father relented. Tim Oi was sent to Hong Kong for secondary schooling at age 21.

Tim Oi and other students from Union Theological College 

While a student she joined an Anglican church of Saint Paul. She was also baptized and took the Christian name Florence, because her birth-month, May, is a month of flowers, and for Florence Nightingale whom she admired.

Responding to a call to ordination after she heard a sermon in which the preacher asked, “Here today we have an English lady … who is willing to sacrifice herself for the Chinese church? Is there a Chinese girl who would be willing to the do the same?", she was awarded a scholarship by the Anglican Church and took a four-year course at the Union Theological College in Canton.

During her third year, peace was shattered by war with Japan.

Along with her fellow students, she served the thousands who were wounded and displaced by the incessant Japanese air raids. Li-Tim Oi experienced the horrors of war.

In response to the great need at the time, she was made deacon in 1941, and was given charge of an Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was overflowing with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside for her at the Eucharist, Bishop Ronald Hall of Hong Kong asked her to meet him in Free China, where on January 25, 1944 he ordained her a priest in God's one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

In his mind, Bishop Hall was merely confirming what he and many others witnessed - that Tim-Oi had the gift of priestly ministry.

After World War II, Tim Oi tried to diffuse the controversy surrounding her ordination by surrendering her priest's license, but not her Holy Orders, the knowledge of which carried her through Maoist persecution.

Diaconal ordination with Bishop Mok and her parents

She suffered from the Red Guards who made her cut up her vestments with scissors and humiliated her in many other ways.

The life and work and ministry and witness of Florence Li-Tim-Oi stands as rebuke of the good Archbishops and Bishops and churchmen of the Church of England and institutionalized sexism and misogyny everywhere.

Vocation is something which is heard by an individual, witnessed in her life and validated by the community of faith.

It begins with the individual but ends with an ever-deepening, self-sacrificial journey into the mystery and intimacy of community.

To turn a blind eye to the witness of the Spirit moving and acting in the life of another speaks more to the spiritual and corporal arrogance of those in power than it does of the validity of the person's vocation.

I have to believe there are consequences for the continued practices of injustice in the church and in the world.

Would that every man were like Li-Tim Oi's father and might be able to see the birth of each infant girl-child as a "Tim Oi" - "another much beloved girl" - capable of hearing the call of God to take on the mantle of servant leadership in the church as well as her place in the councils and corridors of institutional power.

A luta continua - "the struggle continues". May we be inspired by the life and witness of Florence Li-Tim Oi as we continue the work of justice for all God's children in the church and in the world.

I hear another conversation between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, one that mirrors a conversation in one episode of Downton Abbey between Lady Cora and the Lady Grantham:

ABC: “I might send her over to visit my aunt. She could get to know New York.”

ABY: “Oh, I don’t think things are quite that desperate.”

Then again, gentlemen, considering the remarks of the Suffragan Bishop of Lewes, perhaps they are. Perhaps they are.

The story is far from over.

The struggle continues.

Stay tuned.

Shout the Gospel With Your Life: Celebrating 35 years of the Rev’d Dr Ellen (Sr. Bernadette) Barrett

The Rev'd Dr. Ellen Barrett

Last month, in "Holy Women, Holy Men," the proposed new liturgical calendar of saints gave us the opportunity to learn about Charles de Foucauld, a Trappist monk who had a “ministry of presence” among “the furthest removed, the most abandoned” in the Sahara Desert.

He saw the purpose of his work not to proselytize or to convert people whose faith and culture differed from his, but to “shout the gospel” with his life.

Agnes de Mille once wrote: "No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently."

Trumpets may not have sounded on the morning of January 10, 1977 when Ellen M. Barrett was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Paul Moore in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, but the headline in the above-the-fold section of the front page of the New York Times that morning blared, “Lesbian Woman to be Ordained Priest.”

That headline was, at the time, more of a scandal than V. Gene Robinson’s election and consecration as the first openly gay male bishop. The Episcopal Church was certainly no stranger to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Everybody knew somebody who was a "Father Wink-Wink".

Barrett was not only a woman and a lesbian, she was self-affirming. About being both.

Remember: The year was 1977.

Let me put this into some historical context for you.

The Stonewall Riots happened in June of 1969.  The 'Lavender Revolution' was less than 10 years old.

The Equal Rights Amendment passed the U.S. Senate and then the House of Representatives in 1972 and was sent to the states for ratification.

In 1973, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church voted - again - to reject the issue of the ordination of women.

On July 29, 1974, eleven women were "irregularly ordained" to the priesthood at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia,  PA.

In September of 1975, four more women were "irregularly ordained" to the priesthood at St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, DC.

In 1975, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) passed enabling legislation for women priests (the first six women priests in the ACC were ordained in November 1976).

In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate. At the same time, the previous ordinations were regularized.

The first regular ordination occurred on 1 January 1977, when Jacqueline Means was ordained at the Episcopal Church of All Saints, Indianapolis.

In the month of January, 1977, no less than forty-one women were ordained to the priesthood.

As 1977 drew to a close, over 100 women had been ordained priests in The Episcopal Church.

A new day was dawning in The Episcopal Church and for many of “God’s frozen chosen,” it was a rude awakening.

Some churches flew the Episcopal flag at half-staff or upside-down. Some rectors and their congregations left – or threatened to leave – The Episcopal Church.

The “Chicken Little School of Theology” was on high alert, certain that the sky was falling and this would be THE END of The Episcopal Church many had known all their lives and loved with all their hearts.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

While The Episcopal Church has certainly – thanks be to God - changed over the last thirty-five years, I believe history will reveal that what happened on January 10, 1977 to be one of the more significant and transformative events in the life of our church.

It may disprove, at least equivocally, Ms. de Mille’s statement, “Destiny is made known silently.”

One of the silent fears at the time was that opening ordination to women – besides making unification with Rome that much more difficult even more impossible – was that the only women who would seek ordination to the priesthood were women who "really wanted to be men". Read: lesbians.

Never mind that, every time I put on an alb - a long white dress - to preside at Eucharist, I'm dressing in traditional, ancient male garb. She may not have invented it, but it would seem that Mother Church is no stranger to "drag". 

Ellen, Ernest Clay, and Kate Jones - Chicago, 1975

The New York Times hardly “scooped” the story about Ellen being a lesbian.

She was, from 1974-75, the co-president (with Jim Wickliff) of the then-fledgling organization known as Integrity, which had been founded by Louie Crew.

Her diaconal ordination in 1975 at St. Peter’s, Chelsea, had even drawn a small protest demonstration.

Rather than being "news" the headline only served to feed into the worst fears of sexism and homophobia, each of which has deep roots in the other.

Nick Dowen, long time convener of Integrity/NYC, remembers it clearly. “I had come home from work and turned on the six o’clock news. There was a film clip of Bishop Moore, ducking his mitre under heavy television cables on his way into Church of the Holy Apostles (where the ordination took place). It was clear that he was not pleased with all the attention.”

“I was thunderstruck,” Dowen said. “This signaled a new openness for gay men and lesbian women in the church – my church – and I couldn’t have been more proud.”

That was to be short-lived. At the next vestry meeting of the Church of the Ascension, which had been the meeting place of Integrity/NYC, the Vestry voted to ask the group to leave the church premises. Dowen was a member of the vestry at the time and only he and one other vestry member voted against the move.

Kate, Ellen & Louie Crew - Chicago, 1975

“It was an unexpected and decisive vote and it really shook me,” said Dowen. “I have been part of what I like to call ‘Liberal American Protestantism’ all my life, which had a long tradition of extending a warm welcome to everyone.”

“This was one of the most formative and transformative experiences of my life. I had never even heard of Integrity before Ellen’s ordination, but you can bet I got involved.”

Anyone who knows Ellen – now a monastic known as Sr. Bernadette – can tell you that she is the least likely person to cause such a tempest in the baptismal waters of the teapot known as The Episcopal Church.

The biographical statement of her life, which appears in the Religious Archives Network reveals no indication of a woman who would one day become above-the-fold headline news in the New York Times.

Here are a few highlights:

Barrett was born on February 10, 1946 in Lawrence, Kansas and hails from a proper Episcopal family - baptized at Trinity Episcopal Church and confirmed in the R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia.

Her mother was secretary of the English Department at VMI (Virginia Military Institute). Her father was a professor at Washington and Lee University, chairing the Department of Roman Languages and also served as an  attaché to the U.S. embassy in Ecuador.

She has a solid educational background. Her secondary schooling began in Stuart Hall, an Episcopal school for girls in Staunton, Virginia. She later graduated from Lexington High School in Virginia. Her undergraduate career had two stages: she first attended Southern Seminary Jr. College in Buena Vista, Virginia, graduating in 1967; from there she went to Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut, graduating in 1970 with a BA in English literature.

In 1975, Barrett was awarded a M.Div. with honors from the General Theological Seminary, a member of its second class to admit women. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in medieval history from New York University in 1982, writing her dissertation on the only indigenous religious order in medieval England, the Gibertines, covering the order from its foundation in 1131 to the canonization of St. Gilbert of Sempringham in 1202.

She has worked mostly as a non-stipendiary and interim priest, and has taught medieval and church history at a variety of academic institutions in the Greater New York area, including Fordham University, New York University, Manhattan College, Union Theological College, New York Theological Seminary, and the Theological School of Drew University. 

Real radical stuff, eh?

Had she been male and heterosexual, she would have had "all the right stuff" to be on the fast-track to the episcopacy - or, at least, a prestigious dean or cardinal rector. 

Such a pity she has contributed to the downfall of the church in particular and Western Civilization in general, not to mention the destruction of family life and the corruption of the morals of our youth – and, no doubt, is the real cause of Global Warming, tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes.

Sr Bernadette

Today, Sr. Bernadette lives the solitary life of a monastic, occasionally augmenting her below-the-poverty-line pension with short-term interim and supply duties.

“She has paid a huge price in deployment because of her pioneering,” says Louie Crew, a long-time friend and fellow pioneer, adding, “I hope that everyone in the church will celebrate this occasion. It would also be very nice if a purse might be given.” (Not to worry. See below)

The thing about decisions and destiny is that many may happen quietly and even silently, but the ones that change lives rarely come without high cost.

I am deeply grateful for those who came before me who stepped out in faith, never counting the cost. I believe with all my heart that I would not have been ordained almost 26 years ago without the courageous witness of women like Ellen Barrett.

The Rev’d Dr. Ellen “Sr. Bernadette” Barrett has gone about these past 35 years quietly doing the work God has called her to do, being an unsuspecting and unintentional prophet in a not-for-prophet church.

I hope we both live long enough to see Sr. Bernadette in a newly revised edition of "Holy Women, Holy Men". The preface of that book says this:

In these saints we encounter not models of absolute perfection, but men and women whose lives, with all their diversity of gifts and graces, were reshaped by God's redemptive activity. May we take heart as we realize that, in spite of their failings and ours, we are all alike redeemed sinners called to be saints, those in whom the risen Christ's words to St. Paul come to fulfillment: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2Cor.12:9)

Like Foucauld, Ellen "Sr. Bernadette" Barrett has shouted the gospel with her life, as the destiny of the church to embody the equality and liberation and justice of the Realm of God has quietly been revealed – despite the occasional blaring of headlines.

NOTE: If you would like to celebrate our history and honor Sr. Bernadette’s contribution to the life of our church, please make a check out to Integrity/USA and mark it “In honor of Sr. Bernadette” and mail it to:

Integrity/USA
David Cupps, Operation Mgr.
838 East High St. #291
Lexington, KY 40502

Or, visit the IntegrityUSA website ( http://www.integrityusa.org/ ) and click on the “Donate Now” link to your right, being sure to indicate “Sr. Bernadette” in the box marked: “Dedication”

All contributions will be sent directly to her.

Thank you!

P.S.  Thank you to Louie Crew for the pictures of Sr. Bernadette from his own private album.