Religion: The Women's Rebellion

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The women were clearly out of order. In a joint letter to friends, they admitted that the ordinations were "irregular," even while contending they were "valid and right." None of the eleven had the required approval of her bishop and diocesan standing committee of clergy and laity. Moreover, the quartet of bishops who ordained them lacked authority on other grounds as well. The Rt. Rev. Robert L. De Witt, 58, the resigned Bishop of Pennsylvania; the Rt. Rev. Edward Randolph Welles II, 67, the retired Bishop of West Missouri; and the Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan, 73, the retired bishop who had headed domestic missions, all apparently ignored a canon that forbids retired bishops to perform "episcopal acts" unless so requested by the local bishop. There was no such request. The fourth participant, the Rt. Rev. José Antonio Ramos, 37, of Costa Rica, was acting out of his jurisdiction. The four could be suspended or deposed by a church trial court.

Just who began the 1974 Philadelphia revolution is unclear. One important influence was the Rev. Edward G. Harris, co-dean of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., who issued an impassioned call in June for the immediate ordination of women. Another major backer, who delivered the sermon at the ordination, was Harvard Professor Charles V. Willie, a layman and a black who is vice president of the church's House of Deputies.

In his sermon, Willie likened the eleven ordained rebels to the blacks of the '50s who refused to go on sitting at the rear of the bus. Many of the women struck a similar note of exhausted patience, arguing that only action would finally move the church. "God has been calling me all my life," said Katrina Swanson, 39, whose father, Bishop Welles, ordained her. "The time is right." With the Episcopal Church now in a gathering storm over the issue, some of the women's staunchest sympathizers are questioning whether it was.

*Or anywhere else in the Anglican Communion except Hong Kong, which took advantage of the Anglican Consultative Council's 1971 endorsement of ordaining women if a national church body so wills.

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