How To Write A Womynpreest Homily

First of all, you can’t call it a “sermon”.  First syllable sounds like “Sir”, so that makes it a masculine word, and that’s a big no-no.  And the second syllable sounds an awful like “men” – again, the wrong-gender specific thing.  So under no circumsta—-oops, can’t use that word either (1st syllable again!)—so under no conditions may a womynpreest’s homily be called a sermon. Or manifesto. But “reflection” is acceptable, and so is “meditation”.

Now that that’s out of the way…

To make your homily resonate with deep transcendentalism and profound self-promotion, incorporate as many of the following ten elements of the “AoftheA Homily And Reflection Preparation Index”, or HARPI, for short:

1. Mention that Jesus stood up to the authority of his day.
2. Use the word and/or phrase “justice”/”social justice”, preferably in inaccurate ways.
3. Compare Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple with the womynpreest’s movement to overturn the tables of the Vatican.
4. State that the Church is sexist.
5. Use catchy phrases like “afflict the comfortable”, “oppressing the marginalized” or others like them.
6. Mention the sex abuse scandal.
7. Appeal to emotion and/or conscience.
8. Ignore doctrine.
9. Mention Mary Magdalene or any other New Testament female figure to prop up the notion of womynpreests.
10. Mention the environment, or eco-spirituality.

Now, let’s take a look at a recent homily, given by Janice Sevre-Duszynska this past Sunday, as reprinted in the National Catholic Distorter.

Notations of the ten elements are shown in [blue].

First Reading: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,[5]” in The Eucharist and the Hunger of the World by Monika K. Hellwig.
Second Reading: Ballad of the Carpenter (sung in English, then read in Spanish)
Gospel: Matthew 25: 31-46.

We afflicted the comfortable [5] after showing “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” for the first time in Rome in October. Following our press conference, our group met at the corner of Via Concilizione, the street leading to the Vatican. We were members of Call to Action, Women’s Ordination Conference, and women priests. We were here to support Roy Bourgeois and women priests.

“What shall we sing?” we asked one another. I shook my ordination tambourine as the WOC banner was displayed and Roy brought out his red-and-white banner with “Ordain women priests” in English and Italian. [8]

We were chanting the Celtic Alleluia and singing “Here I am, Lord” on our way to the Vatican to present the petition signed by 15,000 supporters of Roy and women priests. We were in Rome to cleanse the Vatican temple of sexism. [3][4]  A church that excludes women [4] distracts us from being aware of the feminine aspect of spirituality and the experience and perceptions of women’s living and dying. [7] The result is we have a church with a distorted understanding of God. The imbalance creates evil, sin and the suffering continues in our world community. [8]

“What do you want? Women priests. When do you want them? Now,” we shouted out. [7]

Roy turned to me and said, “Janice, we’re turning over the tables in the Vatican.” [3]

“Yes, Roy. We are,” I nodded, smiling.

Temple cleansing is not easy and can be unsettling. [3] The Vatican showed its resistance [4] by having the Italian police take the WOC banner away from Erin Hanna, as she was the organizer, and putting her and Miriam Duignan, the translator from womenpriests.org in London, into the police car, and with sirens at full blast, taking them to the police station. Then a plainclothes detective of the Italian police violently grabbed the banner away from Roy, pushing him. Roy joked at CTA in Milwaukee earlier this month that when he was driven to the jail in the police car, he had no sirens. [7]

Then there was the issue of the three of us ordained who were in our albs and stoles: Ree Hudson, ordained woman priest from St. Louis, Mo., and Deacon Donna Rougeux and myself from Lexington, Ky. They would not arrest us. Nor would they let us into St. Peter’s Square. [4]

“They,” he pointed to the Vatican temple, “they believe women are dangerous,” said one of the policemen I talked with as he blocked me from the passage between the iron gates that now surround the temple. He continued: “Your priestly garb is a protest. We cannot let you in.”

Then he whispered to me how he and the others support women priests, but that he must “do his job.” Yet when he said this to me, I thought of military soldiers doing their “jobs” too. [7]

“What does your conscience tell you?” [7] I asked him. He just smiled and stood there.

I grabbed hold of my alb and stole and reflected. [7] They’ve excommunicated us women priests. [7] Told us in “delicta graviora” that we are in the same category of sin as pedophile priests [6] — whom they have not excommunicated. [7] And now they won’t let us into the temple area. [7] Like the Pharisees, they are afraid of table turners, temple cleansers [3][7]… led by the Spirit within …

We had afflicted the comfortable [5]: our brother priests at the Vatican.

Many people recognize the underlying connections between male-only images of God and a domination/subordination pattern of human relationships that contribute to violence in our world, including violence toward women and children. [7]

Jesus’ attitude toward women was revolutionary. The Last Supper was not an ordination.  The 12 apostles were symbolic of the 12 tribes of Israel. Mary Magdalene [9]was the “Apostle to the Apostles.” The archaeological research of the early Church by theologians like Dorothy Irvin and Gary Macy provide scholarly evidence of a tradition of women deacons, priests and bishops during early Christianity. [8]

Jesus challenged the religious and civil authorities of his time [1] for the empowerment of the marginalized, [5]  including women. Women’s rights are human rights. We are claiming the right to stand “in persona Christi” — in the person of Christ — as equals to men. [4]

The full equality of women is the voice of God in our time. Ours is a holy shakeup of the Catholic hierarchy who treat women as strangers and give them no welcome. [4] In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome.”

How do you welcome strangers?

She did alright – while she didn’t explicitly mention “justice” or “social justice”, that theme is definitely implied, so I’ll recognize [2].  About the only thing she neglected was [10] – the environment.  Lots of appeal to emotion (you could argue that the entire homily is an appeal to emotion, actually), and several mentions of “cleansing the Temple”.  All in all, I’d give her a 9.32 on the HARPI Scale (31 notations + 1 for the implied “justice”, from 9 categories).  That’s pretty impressive!

Your assignment, dear readers, (if you have the stomach for it) is to apply the HARPI Scale to a homily given by Bridget Mary Meehan.  What mark do you give her?

Advertisements