Fortress Press

In a carefully crafted ethnographic study of the Roman Catholic Women Priests' movement, Callahan and Rodriguez offer a hopeful and joyful message to anyone who feels marginalized by institutional religion.

Callahan and Rodriguez offer a stunning pneumatological and ethnographic reversal of expectation on the "ordination of women" question within the Roman Catholic Church by rigorously examining the ongoing ministries and "spirits" (1 John 4) of women ordained in apostolic succession (if contra legum, canon 1024). Scripturally, theologically, and phenomenologically, the authors provide ample testimony to Spirit's fruit and ecclesial renewal in (and because of) the faithful perseverance of over forty womenpriests living their priestly vocations. That this is done with such clear love of a church that refuses such women, even with theological-ecclesial integrity and prophetic challenge, makes this a compelling read and a remarkable testimony to God's ongoing work in the world, sometimes despite the church.

What can it mean to willingly invest oneself in a religious institution that tells you that you cannot, that you should not, lead? How do you follow the Holy Spirit into leadership amidst oppressive structures? These are some of the most difficult questions Roman Catholic womenpriests must struggle with, and this compelling and beautifully written book explores the diverse and multiple answers these women articulate. The wider Christian community has so much to learn from their journeys, and to ignore them is to miss out on the surprising joy the Spirit breathes into the world in the twenty-first century.

Why ever would a woman want to be a Roman Catholic priest? This book offers the surprising, compelling, and powerful stories of women who have chosen to do just that, even as the official church excommunicates them for doing so. The wider Christian community has so much to learn from their journeys, and to ignore them is to miss out on the surprising joy the Spirit breathes into the world in the twenty-first century. Quixotic, compelling, full of both joy and sorrow, the stories of Roman Catholic womenpriests that Callahan and Rodriguez have gathered into this book offer captivating glimpses into a church in transition in the twenty-first century. The book also offers a concise yet substantial historical overview of the question of women and the priesthood in the Catholic church, with careful attention to both church documents and contemporary theological wisdom.

I have a front-row seat to the struggles of women seeking to lead in the Catholic church, not simply because of my own journey, but because I've followed my mother-in-love Dagmar as she became a Roman Catholic womanpriest as part of the Danube 7. This book is a compelling, carefully researched, and thoughtfully contextualized engagement with the movement of Roman Catholic womenpriests. Callahan and Rodriguez have given us a profound gift that has much to teach all of us who care about Christian community, leading with the Holy Spirit, and embodying church in the twenty-first century.

What better time for this carefully researched and profoundly inspiring work than now, with the hope-filled dawning of a new church that calls for and listens to the voices of its women, lay and religious, as equals in a synodal, not hierarchical, church. The authors reveal the love, concern, and spirituality of these women in their lives as priests, albeit illegally ordained. They have dedicated their lives to a church that still runs away from them. The women in this text were called by and responded to their call from--they argue--the same God who called all who came to serve God's people before them.