The Philadelphia Eleven

Years ago, I became aware of how we try to put God in a box by making God into our own image.

And because of the 4,000 years of patriarchal thinking, that has meant God was a male.

(dramatic choral music) A heated debate has been going on in the Episcopal Church on whether women can serve as priests.

The person who functions as a priest functions as an image of Christ, an icon of Christ.

Christ was a man.

(Overlapping announcer voices) [Speaker] Do not have the right.

I get so tired of being decided about behind my back.

(dramatic music) (music slows down and fades) (birds chirping) (footsteps and hooves walk on gravel) I missed you.

(laughs) Good to see you.

(laughing) Hey, Nancy.

Here we are.

- Nobody can find you!

(laughing) This was not a bad idea for retirement.

- No!

(laughter) The last time I heard you were here, you and Alison had a great visit.

- Yes.

- Which was wonderful.

So y'all come right on into this room here and then we're getting the food in.

We thank you, oh, holy God.

Mother, Father, sister, brother, lover for bringing us together to give thanks for each other.

And that we are here still with lives to lead and to do it the best we can.

As Alison and many of us were fond of saying before a meal, some have food, some have none.

[Together] God bless the revolution.

(gentle music) (horses neighing) From the time that I was two on, I began to sort of experience some kind of connection between the God that we're hearing about in church all the time and my animal friends.

There's never been a time in my life that I can recall that I wasn't pondering how we're connected to this God.

(birds chirp) I have a particular understanding of the priesthood that has only grown deeper over the years.

God calls certain of us to help others see reality through the eyes of God, and this is always about justice and always about compassion and always about kindness and mercy.

My mother said to me that I had told her when I was a little girl that I wanted to be a priest.

She said she and my dad both said, "Well, that's wonderful honey, but you know, that's just not what girls do."

(birds chirping outside) The ordination day.

That's a happy look.

[Filmmaker] Oh, you look... you're glowing!

Yeah, yeah.

The whole religious thing was a part of my life.

It wasn't just something set aside, but it was something that was to be a part of who we are, part of our our DNA.

It was a remarkable time to grow up.

The world was changing and this country was changing.

(gospel singing) I was very much impressed by seeing the religious nuns and priests in the civil rights movement.

(Marchers sing a gospel song) My dad was still working at the Pentagon and at one point when he came home and found out that three of his five children were demonstrating on one line or another, and so, but he was a good sport about it.

So it became a realization that this religious stuff had something important to tell us about how we make choices and how we behave.

So I decided that I really wanted to study theology and I went to Virginia Seminary.

Where it would lead, I had no idea.

No idea.

(bright music) (sport whistle blowing) [Reporter] The seminary is a graduate school.

A student spends three years in concentrated study of the ideas and opinions about God and man that have shaped the culture of our western world.

The goal toward which it all leads is here, the church.

For the young man, it means one of the high moments of his life, his ordination to the ministry.

(gentle music) I grew up in South Australia and I married a man who got a scholarship to go to Harvard, so we went there on a single mans scholarship.

I'd been at seminary for at least two years.

I had all these children and everything, and so when I really wanted to rest, I'd say that I was going to an Episcopal conference and making a retreat because that was socially acceptable.

Actually being a student at seminary wasn't very socially acceptable.

I really felt that I'd been called to the priesthood.

So I thought, well, there's nothing to do but talk to the bishop.

There was a movie showing at the time called "The Mad Housewife," and I thought, if I tell this man about my experience, he'll think he's got the mad housewife on his hands.

And so I sort of stammered and stuttered a bit and told him I thought I had a call to the priesthood.

At the end of the conversation he said, "Well, I don't think you know what you want."

And that was it.

I don't understand her problem!

Your husband works hard to support you, in return for which he wants the house clean, the buttons sown on and a modest amount of sexual intercourse.

I mean, what's your problem?

It was expected that women would be assistants.

If we were at seminary, we'd understand scripture, we'd understand church history.

Eventually, we needed to be a man's assistant.

(soft melodic music) I was a very shy little girl.

I had this love of the Episcopal Church oddly enough, and would go to church and go to all the services and I just loved it.

When I was a senior in college, it was time to make some decisions.

So I began a program for a master of divinity.

I was like maybe a first year student and I had gone down to the general convention in Houston in 1970.

And I saw these women and it was like, oh my goodness, you know, why aren't they able to do this work?

And I, for the first time ever, I stood up and made a speech about how important it was for women to be ordained and I was scared to death.

But there's a saying, you know, you need to speak the truth even if your voice shakes.

And that's what I did... and it kind of started it.

[Announcer] The chair is about to call the house to order.

Will the members please take their seats?

(music like clockwork) (music continues) [Speaker] The newly elected deputies come to us as bearers of the gospel.

They also bring us something that the house has needed desperately for a long time.

Some beauty.

(audience laughing) [Alla] That first group of laywomen, the very first thing they did was call for a vote on women in the priesthood.

[Deputy] And we as a committee believe that the ordination of women would greatly strengthen and complete the total ministry of this church.

[Deputy] It would move us into a position of difficulty with the Roman Catholics, with the Eastern Orthodox.

[Deputy] If my information is correct, report has it that 20% of the present male clergy at this moment are unemployed.

It's one thing to consider ordination and it's quite another thing to consider, where will opportunity for income come from?

[Deputy] I suggest to you that we cannot wait to settle questions of the freedom of all of humanity.

Women are either free in our society or they are not.

(applause) It almost passed.

After that, women from all over came and we sat on the grass in the backyard of the Central House for Deaconesses and we strategized.

The Anglican Church has studied the ordination of women since 1919 and every study always said, there's nothing in scripture that forbids it, but let's not do it yet.

And that's been the attitude for over 50 years now.

[Carter] Sue Hiatt was the big strategist among us.

She was a social worker.

She had been a community organizer, so she understood how to organize a movement.

(train rumbling) Sue and Emily and I were on the train back and forth from Philadelphia to New York, trying to figure out what to do next.

And we would be going over and over articles about organizing that is kind of boring in a way, but very sort of energizing if you think it really is gonna make a difference, and we did.

(guitar strumming) [Reporter] The National Convention of the Episcopal Church convenes to consider a number of questions, but probably the most important is the question of whether women should be ordained as priests within the Episcopal Church.

There we were in the audience, we being not only all these women seeking ordination, but laypeople, men and women, friends of the ordination of women movements.

[Reporter] For women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church, a majority must approve in the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops.

[Deputy] Women are equal joint sharers of God's grace through Jesus Christ.

But when it talks about the role of women, it tells us clearly time and time and time again that woman must take a position second to man, that grace is channeled through man.

[Deputy] I wish to urge you to vote against this resolution.

This is a matter of faith.

[Deputy] The church is not ready to accept... [Deputy] We do not have the right to change this ministry.

(overlapping chattering of deputies) [Deputy] This goes to the very heart of our church.

[Deputy] Damage our ecumenical... [Deputy] We do not have our own sacraments.

[Deputy] As we look at the Bible, we find its imagery of God as patriarch.

[Deputy] This matter will affect the future of the church forever!

(brooding music) I remember just breaking down, sitting there when the vote came in Louisville because I love the church so much.

I just couldn't believe that they weren't gonna come through here.

[Priest] Mr. President, there is a priest in the Diocese of Pennsylvania who has counseled many of us on the subject of ordination of women, and I wondered what I could possibly say to that loving and wise priest to whom ordination of women to the priesthood meant so very much.

Do not despair, Suzanne Hiatt, for in God's eyes, you are priest indeed.

They cannot close you in.

They cannot defeat you, for in Christ you are free.

(soaring gentle music) Sue Hiatt, who was in Philadelphia at that time working in the bishop's office, she knew everybody and finally said, "I think we need to get the women together."

[Carter] And I was really quite excited about finding sisters who had similar aspirations.

I thought, these are the people I wanna spend my life around.

They're just a great bunch of people and they do understand that God is a God of justice and that women are as fully human as men.

(violin plucking) We'd all worked very hard to get where we were and so it was scary.

[Barbara] I was not one of the Philadelphia 11, but I was part of the planning for a dignified service of ordination that reflected the sincerity and the humility of the people involved.

What we talked about was that there had to be more than one woman and there had to be more than one bishop because that's just the way things have to happen in order to survive the pressure.

At that point, my husband was ordained to the priesthood.

We had hoped to be ordained together and during his service of ordination, I stood in the doorway at the back of the church to symbolically say, I can go no further.

We needed women prepared for ordination to the priesthood who were already deacons in good standing, who had already proven their accomplishments in ministry.

And we began to make a list of the women that we needed to be in touch with and the women we thought might be interested in throwing themselves on the railroad track.

Nancy Wittig called me and she said, well, on the 29th that three bishops were going to ordain some women deacons to the priesthood.

My heart leapt up and my head began looking at the consequences and my body felt as though I was having a heart attack.

(music swells) There were about 40 deacons that were contacted.

And 11 of us at that point agreed to participate.

[Carter] We were not the same by any means, conservative and liberal and progressive and radical and right on the edge.

We need to find some bishops who would be willing to do the ordinations.

Several bishops who said they were interested, several backed out at the last minute.

Three for sure, bishops, Bishop Corgan, Bishop Wells, and there was Bishop Dewitt.

And there was quite some discussion about where the ordination might take place.

The rector, Paul Washington, proposed the Church of the Advocate.

He asked the congregation if it approved of the irregular ordination being held there.

And overwhelmingly, the congregation said, "Yes."

Paul was a living saint.

He certainly lived and walked the gospel every day.

[Paul Washington] In good Christian theology, there is a real mission which falls upon us.

There has been oppression.

There has been a denial of opportunities.

There has been a suppression of the rights of not only the black group as one of the American minorities, but all minority groups.

[Carter] We talked some about how white we all were.

At that point, the structure of the Episcopal Church was so largely white and there were no women of color, none at all, who had been ordained deacons, who were ready to be ordained to the priesthood.

So for us to be invited to be ordained at the Church of the Advocate was really quite a powerful statement of solidarity of black people and white people together against sexism.

(gentle music) It was stressful.

There were certainly some women who were in favor of women's ordination who really were not happy that some of us were pushing too far too fast, they thought.

One woman was Pauli Murray.

She basically believed that we should be working through the system and give it a little bit longer at least because these things take time.

We knew what we might be facing.

We were told it was going to be a secret ceremony, but it had been leaked to the press two weeks earlier.

Well, there was no question that we were in trouble.

(keyboard clacking) (soft music) We all received a telegram from the bishops... (keyboard clacking) (quiet, ominous music) Pleading with us not to do this, that it would ruin the church.

(keyboard clacking) (ominous buzzing, music) I knew that there were some very, very angry people who could have been violent, but that just did not hold any weight for me or I don't think any of my sisters.

[Carter] Sue Hiatt said that it was way worse than any of us knew, how much violence had been threatened.

(tense music) Paul Washington said, "The police are organized and we have hired an additional security for the protection of the women."

[Carter] The security was some of Washington's Black Panther friends and a group of lesbians.

It was a great combination.

It was so clear that we were being called to that day and we were willing to stand and we would not be denied this.

(choral harmonizing) I arrived at church about eight o'clock in the morning and the phones were ringing off the hook.

I picked up the phone and one woman said, "Are you people going to ordain women there today?"

And I said, "Yes, we are."

And she said, "You're gonna split this church right in half."

I said, "The church is already split in half.

That's why we're doing it."

(congregation chattering softly) (organ music and choral singing) I was the crucifer that day.

As I came out, I really wanted to lead that procession like Joshua seven times around the walls of Jericho.

But for safety reasons, we had decided to have a very short procession.

(choral singing) We started walking into the sanctuary with our presenters and there were all these lights, and in those days, three big networks, NBC, ABC, CBS were out there with their big cameras and it was like, my goodness.

And there were people as far as you could see in this church that probably sat 2 or 3,000.

It's like we had walked into something that was outside ourselves.

It was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had of just really something that was unequivocally right.

(service proceeds) Suddenly, there was this loud pop.

It sounded like a gunshot.

Everybody froze.

Nobody breathed.

I checked my own white alb, no red on it.

I checked everybody else's chest beside me and they were all right.

The bishops were all right, so the liturgy continued.

It is our previous understanding that there are persons present who would like to make statements concerning individuals who are to be ordained.

The proceedings here enacted are unlawful and schismatical, constituting a grave injury to the peace of Christs Church.

We do not gain 11 priests today.

We lose four bishops.

You may break the laws, sirs, our savior broke many laws, but you break today a law he did not break.

That law is this, God shall be called Father and so shall his priests.

(observers exclaiming) How can a religious organization condemn sexism in the world and at the same time, condone legislative action which discriminates against women in the church?

We have come here today to secure the right of full participation.

If it must be done, tis better that it should be done now.

(applause) (choral harmonizing) The deeply profound moment for me was when the bishop read the three pages in the prayer book with the most melodious voice with eye contact all the time, and that to me felt like a movement of the spirit moving into me.

(ceremony continues) Receive the Holy Ghost, for the work of a priest in the church of God in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

[Gathering] Amen!

[Nancy] It felt like the church was rising to the occasion.

The people of God were being the people of God.

[Gathering] Amen!

(Bishop continues the ceremony) The palpable air that I felt that day, dangerous, but the right thing to do.

(choral harmonizing) The day after the ordination in the newspapers, the headlines were abuse of power and underneath that was a story about Nixon.

Impeachment proceedings were moving right along for him and he was on the verge of resigning.

Hell no, no more business as usual!

Were gonna stand up and say weve got fired up.

(crowd chanting) Below that was a picture of us being ordained and I think that we provided the balance to what was going on there because we were women who were saying that power can take various forms and our power was a very positive, life-giving power that kind of balanced off what was happening in the political sphere.

(plane roaring) Within 10 days of the Philadelphia ordinations, the bishops were all called back for an emergency meeting at O'Hare Airport in Chicago to figure out what to do about us.

(inquisitive music) Here in Chicago, the past two days, 130 members of the Episcopal House of Bishops have been meeting in an emergency session.

They're trying to decide what to do about the bishops who illegally ordained the women into the priesthood.

I really, I was so naive, you know.

I thought that bishops were good men and that if you just...

If you just could tell them clearly and eloquently enough what was going on that they would see the problem.

Here was a room full of very angry men who had had to come and break their vacations to deal with these blankity blank women.

[Speaker] Fairness and understanding towards those bishops and others...

It was surreal because we were there.

We had our collars on.

They could see us, but they did not allow us to be in the room.

They did not allow us to speak.

They did not want to hear from us.

And what they spent their time doing was beating up on the bishops who had done it because they had broken the brotherhood.

There are two separate issues here.

One is the ordination of women.

The other is loyalty and obedience and discipline to the constitution of the church.

I feel these men have disobeyed, that they admit that they have.

[Carter] The Bishop of Kentucky said, and I kid you not, "I have decided I'm going back to Kentucky to ordain the great race horse Secretariat who is in my diocese," and said, "And he's the right gender and you men have already laid your hands upon the other end of the horse."

[Reporter] The Episcopal House of Bishops today ruled invalid last month's ordination of 11 women as priests.

The bishop said the issue should be brought up at the church convention in 1976.

(dramatic music) I was hearing the word invalid tossed about.

I actually said rather loudly, "They can't do that."

They'd have to undo 1,500 years of theology of ordination.

I would hope that a diocesan bishop would recognize that we have been validly ordained and that we are priests and that the strength of the sacrament itself is something that is irrevocable.

I went back home to Minneapolis and the phone was ringing off the hook.

The calls were ugly obscenities from people that I had known and loved who said, "I cannot support you."

The bishop forbid me to do anything on Episcopal Church property.

(tense music) This priest, when I was offering him the cup, he came up and he just clawed me and he told me to burn in hell.

[Alla] We have heard the devil here tonight.

[Carter] There were death threats.

[Alison] It felt like a war to me.

[Marie] There were letters from bishops.

[Alla] "We will not allow her to contaminate our property."

It was as if we had pricked an abscess and the puss came running out with all of its poison and we could see it for what it was.

I guess it wasn't until the fall that I realized I was pregnant, way past six weeks.

(Laughs) And then it became the brunt of the jokes by the people who didn't want the ordination of women.

Well, if you ordained a woman and she had a child in utero, was the child ordained?

Good day, I'm Bill Beutel in New York and the program is directions.

This is the Episcopal dilemma.

Should women be priests?

Reverend Carter Heyward of New York, I would be foolish to ask how you feel about women being priests within the Episcopal Church because obviously you believe they ought to be, but I would like you to talk to the point.

We are accountable in terms of our vocations, and by vocations I mean life, not just profession, to Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, and that Jesus Christ knew no boundaries between men and women.

He was a quite a radical in terms of his relationship to women.

St. Paul picks up on that very clearly, saying that there's neither male nor female.

There's neither slave nor free.

But what he does not say is, of course, you are all equal.

What he says is, you are all one.

If we're equal before God, is it not therefore necessary that we be equal between ourselves?

[Stanley] You're confusing equality with convertibility.

Oh, you mean they're not convertible?

I mean that men and women do not have the same functions.

Power in the church means the clergy, and I greatly fear that some women want to be priests because they want power in the church, but I think this is a false conception of the church.

[Bill] Bishop Atkins, is Ms. Heyward a priest?

No, she's not.

[Carter] We had certainly been having conversations with other people over the last several years who were opposed to women's ordination and so we had to learn how to have these conversations without socking people because sometimes, they would be so insulting.

But you know, you're telling your own story.

You're speaking your own truth.

You're not trying to argue with it because what is there to say?

One of the things that really moved us toward Philadelphia was specifically the power of the laity we were experiencing within our own community.

And I must say, I think the bishops underestimated this.

The laypeople in our church will not accept what the bishop said.

If we are invalid, they're invalid.

This is what we're hearing.

The point at issue at Philadelphia is the bishops in Chicago in mid-August said that these ordinations violated the church, violated the Episcopate and violated the Catholic conception of orders.

What happens if you perform now all the functions of a priest of the Episcopal Church?

Well, the thing people are watching for, from what I understand is whether or not any of us are going to celebrate Eucharist publicly at least, and we are.

After supper, he took the cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, "Drink ye all of this for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.

Do this as oft as you shall drink it in remembrance of me."

Those were odd times, you know, because in a way, our vocation was to be seen.

(bell ringing) The Riverside Church celebration was gonna be the first public celebration of the Eucharist by a woman priest, so it was staged very purposely to make an impression beginning with who the three of us were gonna be because we represented three different generations.

Continuing with the fact that the Riverside Church is a very well known church, a lot of anti-war protests, Martin Luther King had spoken there and there was absolutely no way we could celebrate the Eucharist in an Episcopal Church at that point.

(religious music) (congregation applauding) (congregation applauding continues) Hallelujah Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

[congregation] Therefore let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah!

The gifts of God for the people of God.

(chorus singing a hymn) (singing continues) [Alison] By then, I knew I was doing something equivalent to a civil disobedience and that if one chose to do that, then one accepted the consequences, but that was not important to me anymore.

We were being likened to... Who are the Nixon people who broke into the Watergate?

(laughs) The becoming of women into full consciousness is something radically new in our church.

It calls for discipleship of a new depth and dimension.

The Church of Saint Stephen and the Incarnation took me in and made me their own.

The Rector Bill Wendt invited me.

(organ music) (applause) I was vested as the celebrant.

The Rector Bill Wendt was on one side of me and when it actually came to doing the Eucharist, I've never had this experience before or afterwards, so I really cherished that I had an experience of being almost totally unselfconscious and it wasnt as if I was nervous or anything.

It was just that it sort of flowed through me, and... And I'm always grateful for that experience.

(congregation cheering and applauding) [Merril] As various ones of us started celebrating, Bishop Spears said, you know, "I hope you won't do that.

I've had this committee study whether or not these ordinations are valid.

If they say they're valid, I will recognize you as a priest."

He really supported my whole journey there.

Because of that I felt, okay, I won't do anything.

I'll be good and I won't function.

My work was speaking about my life, where I came from and how I came to be called to be a priest.

And I went all over Rochester, I preached in whatever parish would ask me and then I traveled to other places too.

I would get nauseous and throw up before a church service or whatever.

I was really reaching outside myself and discovered that I could do it, but not without a certain toll.

It was very hard because people were just so upset with us.

There was a lot of anger there.

[Carter] By that time I had studied enough theology to realize that if you're gonna really talk about gender issues and sexual issues, you're gonna wind up talking about the same things and that people could try to keep them separate and some did.

Well, you know, this is about women's ordination, not about gay stuff and in my heart of hearts, I knew that's not true.

It's about all of it.

[TV Host] Do you consider homosexuality a disease?

[Anita Bryant] No, I don't.

It's a sin.

It's very plain in many, many scriptures in the Old Testament as well as the new that that God calls it an abomination.

And if they continue in that sin and do not repent of it, you see, any sinner has an opportunity to repent of sin rather than flaunt it and want to change legislation to condone that kind of sin.

My stand is based on the word of God and if God is not the standard of morality, then who is?

[Carter] There were several of us that were in fact gay or lesbian.

Of course, we were called a bunch of man hating dykes, bitches and shrews and all of this stuff, but Sue Hiatt was the first one of us, I believe, to ever say when called a lesbian in public, "Thank you."

She never felt a need to say, you know, I'm actually straight, but I really support my sisters, just "thank you".

(religious music) We were functioning as priests and are having Eucharist in house churches and on we go and it's just, it is now a fait accompli.

It's a done, it's a given.

The church just needs to catch up with us institutionally.

I remember the Sunday morning, it was in between services in the church... a very quiet but powerful moment in my life when I just had this deep sense.

It was almost like a voice saying, "You need to do this.

It will change your life, but you need to do it."

I went to the vestry and I said, "I want to invite one of the women to celebrate the Eucharist," which is what had been forbidden.

They were not allowed to do any priestly act in any parish in the country.

But I don't want to do that without your vote supporting it.

And unanimously, they supported it.

(uplifting music) [Carter] Peter Beebe, a wonderful, wonderful young priest, invited us to celebrate the Eucharist.

Christ Church Oberlin was a little church with a little steeple, but it was a big deal because it was an Episcopal Church.

The bishop had issued a formal letter saying I was not allowed to do this.

(uplifting music continues) And I wrote him back formally and said, "Too bad, I am doing this."

Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(music builds) Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

Hallelujah.

Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

[Congregation] Amen.

I really am defying that mentality in the church which says that a woman is an inferior being whose sexuality needs to be voted upon by a political body, primarily men.

(hopeful music) [Carter] We kept going to parishes that want us there as priests.

Lift up your hearts!

(congregation responds) [Carter] At some point, what was gonna happen to us of course was a big question.

Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

[Congregation] Therefore let us keep the feast.

We cannot find ourselves able to believe that a woman can be a priest and therefore, it would be impossible for us to believe that sacraments she would attempt would be sacraments.

(woman speaking) (uplifting music) Let us pray.

Sanctify us also so that we may faithfully receive this holy sacrament and serve you in unity, constancy and peace.

- Theologically, it is impossible for a woman to be a priest in the Christian Church.

She cannot consecrate the elements in the Eucharist.

She cannot pronounce absolution for the remission of sins.

This she cannot do because she is not of the proper substance or matter any more than grape juice and cookies are a proper matter for the sacrament of the Eucharist or rose petals for the sacrament of baptism.

It is simply a role which a woman cannot fill.

[Carter] Even if the Episcopal Church cannot or will not accept us, we are nonetheless priests of the church, that is the Catholic Church, the Christian Church, and our ministry will always be here for us.

We just need to keep doing what we're doing.

People do come out to communion.

People want to worship the Lord.

When the standing committee of my church voted in favor of having me recognized as a priest, Bob Spears decided not to do that.

[Reporter] I think that what's confusing to people is that you're in a diocese where you have the support of a standing committee and a woman who is ordained and whom you believe to be validly ordained, but because of your responsibility to the total Anglican Communion, you are unable to unilaterally regularize her.

I'm not sure I'm unable to, I'm unwilling to.

That's the distinction.

They really did not want to break rank with their brother bishops.

Collegiality was its name.

We have a collegial relationship with one another and we're all pledged not to do anything until we all do it.

We have to be loyal to our brothers.

[Merril] That was very devastating.

So I felt like, okay, I'm gonna fight for this.

Enjoy the feast of the Lord.

Take our bread We ask You, take our hearts We love You, take our lives Oh Father, we are yours We are yours Take this and eat it.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

During the distributing of the elements, I would ask you all to feed each other for we need each other to give each other strength.

I don't know how I would survive if it weren't for the fact that so many, especially laypeople, have come together around this issue.

I'm a 53 year old grandmother and I never thought I'd get into such radical things, but I feel very strongly about the injustice of women not being allowed to be priests.

I feel there is no reason why they can't be.

That's why I'm here.

I think that's what we exist for, is to recognize something that for most of the church is just too threatening.

When I was ordained to the priesthood, there was no question about my, you know, the question of sex was not an issue and I don't think that it ought to be for a woman either.

(paper crinkling) This was not signed, but he suggests that I use this fishing wire to hang myself.

He called us terrible names and that we were like Satan and lots of swearing going through this whole thing.

And yeah, it reminded me that there are some very unhealthy people in the world and it's scary.

It was very scary to me.

This one says, "For shame that one who names herself a Christian should bring such unhappiness and distress upon the church.

If you love Christ and his church, then withdraw and let there be peace among us."

Well, I'm sorry Father, but that wasn't gonna happen.

(dramatic music) [Announcer] The dispute over ordination of women priests that has split the three million American Episcopalians has added fuel today.

St. Stephen's Church was jammed for the disputed ordination of four more women into the priesthood.

[Merril] We all knew that that will turn the tide totally because they'll see that this isn't gonna stop.

It will not stop with us.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) [Announcer] Now there are 15 women who have staked their claim to the priesthood.

(music fades) The gifts of God for the people of God.

Would you please come forward and form a circle around the table.

As priests, we will receive the bread and wine last to show that we are servants and not rulers of this community.

And as priests, we will receive the bread and wine from the people, to show that our priesthood depends on you and is nurtured and sustained by you.

(group chattering) There's lots of bread to consume, so stick around!

(laughter) Amen, amen Amen, amen Amen Amen, amen Amen, amen Amen [Peter] One Saturday morning, I get a call from Sterling Newell, big lawyer and he's head of the standing committee, right arm to the bishop.

He calls me up and he says, "This is my last call to you.

Are you gonna stand down and admit you did something you shouldn't do and you won't do it again?"

And and I said, "No."

And he said, well then we are gonna take you out of the frying pan and put you into the fire.

Your career is over.

(somber music) [Reporter] Why are you on trial?

Well, I'm on trial supposedly for being disobedient for a very good cause, needless to say.

I think that the principle issue in this trial is the sexism of the Episcopal Church.

[Alla] It was all around this issue of disobeying the godly admonition.

Was the admonition really godly?

Did it really come from God or did it come from a male ego?

It was hard to believe it was really happening.

It's like having an inquisition here in 1975.

[Reporter] The trial of Father William Wendt began today in front of hundreds of spectators in the sanctuary of St. Columba's Episcopal Church.

Wendt is accused of disobeying his bishop when he allowed Mrs. Alison Cheek to celebrate holy communion.

The irony is if they had taken the women to trial, they would've had to struggle with whether or not we really had been ordained priests.

That was a risk that was too great.

So they brought the men to trial for having invited us.

[Reporter] Father William Wendt believes it is not an accident that he was disciplined instead of the women.

[Wendt] If they were to be brought to trial or disciplined in any manner, then they would be recognized and they would have to be dealt with as priests.

And so far as I say, they are in the minds of many, non-entities.

(tense music) [Peter] We were done, we were done.

My career was finished, but it's deeper than that.

I should have said to the bishop, "Look, you marched in Selma.

How dare you take the stance that you're taking?

How dare you preach to this country the way you did and not to your own institution? (car whirring) (birds chirping) By that time, I had been working with the Coalition for the Ordination of Women, which was gonna change the canon that would then allow all women who wanted to be priests to go through the process and to be ordained if that was adjudicated.

We spent every waking hour trying to contact people and beg them to vote for the ordination of women.

Over here, we have my most precious possession.

This is how we would know where we were in the vote tally.

And so we had this notebook and in it was every person who was elected to the 1976 General Convention.

And then we wrote by there where they stood in their deputation.

Here's the Diocese of Northern California, which you would think would be a little more liberal than a lot of other places in the South, but in fact, they were split and there was one person who was split over here in the lay deputation and we actually contacted this man.

He ended up voting yes, so that's how we knew.

We would go through these and count how many yes votes and how many no votes there were.

It was all laywomen and they did an enormous amount of work to make this happen.

(dramatic music) For the last several years, the Episcopal Church has been torn into two parts over the question of women serving as priests.

There has been much defiance of the men only rule and today, the House of Deputies is voting on the same question.

Most of us were there watching and waiting to see what would happen.

(dramatic music) If women are admitted, it will be the biggest change in the Episcopal religion since Henry the VIII in the 16th century.

[Reporter] It's hard to distinguish what is happening here from a heated political convention.

A team of pro ordination forces goes out each day doing a bit of old-fashioned arm twisting and meetings are held to count the votes and strategize about which delegates might still be undecided.

[Interviewer] What is your prediction, Father Mallory, on what will happen in Minneapolis?

I think there'll be a close vote in deputies and I think it will fail and we will maintain our traditional ministry.

I think that we will succeed.

We've been working for two years.

We know where the deputies are and I think we're going to win.

I did not appear up out of a mushroom.

I did not appear out of some vague, esoteric nowhere place.

I appeared out of this family gathered here today who raised me, baptized me, taught me, and I have responded to the call that I heard and witnessed through you.

[Reporter] Those who are opposed to women's ordination as priests collect signatures stating their steadfast opposition.

Some bishops say they will never ordain a woman.

I believe that it is contrary to the will of God.

A woman ordained priest is not a priest.

Her sacrament would not be sacrament and therefore, we would find ourselves in a terrifying form of Christian sacramental division within this church.

(dramatic music) Mr. President, brothers and sisters of the house, it is late.

We are tired and hungry.

Our blood sugar is low.

We are impatient to vote.

(music builds) The Bishop of West Missouri?

No.

The Bishop of Utah?

Yes.

The Bishop of Rhode Island?

Yes.

(tense music) The report of the vote is as follows.

In the clerical order, yes, 60.

No, 38.

Divided 16.

In the lay order, yes, 64.

No, 37.

Divided, 12.

The motion to concur has been carried in both orders and concurrence is voted.

The chair recognizes the chaplain.

(audience applauding) Oh, worth all the prayer and everything.

Yeah, it sure is.

[Nancy] Half of the human population was acknowledged as being important enough to take on one of the strongest institutions in the world.

(audience applauding) [Reporter] Six of the women ordained as priests in the last two years appeared later in a news conference and expressed their happiness about the church's decision.

- Age before beauty.

[Reporter] And said they wanted to get on with the business of being priests.

I miss our sisters who are not here with us today.

(emotional music) (emotional music continues) (emotional music) [Pauli Murray] What I find interesting is the tremendous release of everybody, the excitement that came once the ordinations began.

(audience applauding) Remember January the first, it was front page news.

January 2nd, it was front page news.

[Priest] Lord Jesus Christ.

[Pauli Murray] And it just kept building up and then the newspapers began talking about firsts.

First woman in the United States, the first woman of New York state, the first woman of New Jersey.

(gentle music) The peace of the Lord be with you.

[Congregation] And also with you.

I was happy that the church had done the right thing, but patriarchal social relations are the the ground upon which all of us stand.

It has to do with power, with money, with tradition that is structured in such a way that very, very few people ever even think of questioning it because it's just the way it is.

(gentle music) The notion that the ordination of women should be supremely offensive requires a little explanation.

What is the explanation?

It seemed as if we lost our moorings.

We lost our standards.

We had no sense of authority anymore.

Do you think that their major transgressions were theological?

Theological, but also moral.

If you want to see the decline of the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Southern Ohio recently passed...

When you call a priest, you cannot distinguish between whether he's a man or a woman or he is straight or gay.

Its not just the ordination of women, but the entire breakdown of any moral standards within the life of the church.

By what authority did you revolt?

They revolted!

They created a new church in Minneapolis and what we're doing is fighting within the church for the church.

So you are really the old church and they are in heresy.

That's right.

Sue Hiatt and I at the Episcopal Divinity School spent many a moment talking about what had and had not been accomplished.

What else needed to happen to transform the church other than having women priests in a way playing the role of sort of female patriarchs running around in collars and acting like men had always acted in the priesthood rather than a new way?

[Male Priest] ...That your word may be spoken and your word heard.

[Sue] I remember feeling like the wandering in the wilderness was just beginning for us rather than ending.

We'd had this marvelous 18 months of molding the kind of priesthood that we would want priests to be.

And now that this is going to be legal, will it be what I always call the animal farm scenario?

You know, the last chapter of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" where the pigs go in to negotiate with the farmers and the other animals look in the window and they can't tell the pigs from the men.

Jesus Christ [Sue] I was very frightened that that's what would happen with women priests.

With the glory of God, the Father (birds chirping) (wood thudding) (footsteps crunching gravel) [Merril] I realized that I just was exhausted emotionally and spiritually.

(somber music) I was really broken-hearted from the actions of Bishop Spears.

And that was a major piece for me, but that was not all.

I liked to be in the background and I wasn't.

I was so in the front ground.

And it took a toll (somber music continues) When I announced that I was leaving, I had so much support from my sisters.

I wrote a letter to my friend Noppa and said, "I need to get outta here.

I need to go."

I was anonymous.

No one knew who I was and I needed that.

I needed that so desperately (soft dramatic music) Noppa and I lived in our log cabin without electricity or running water for 25 years.

It was just wonderfully freeing.

(gentle music) [Nancy] It was very hard for all of us to find ways to get on a level playing field.

For the first 10 years after the ordination, I was a supply clergy, which means that when the local priest is sick or goes on vacation, you need to have a priest come in to do the services.

But in the meantime, I had had two children and the second child was born with significant physical problems.

(Her footsteps on the sidewalk) Larry, good morning.

Morning, Nancy.

How are you?

Doing good.

(coffee pouring) [Nancy] For years before I got a church, I used to write sermons.

We had a movable dishwasher, you know, that would come out.

And so I used to write sermons on that so I could watch where the children were and what they were doing.

And so I thought it was a pretty good seat that I had.

I was not out until I left the church in Philadelphia.

Some people figured it out, some people didn't know.

The first thing that somebody, a leader of the church where I am now, said to me when I first got there was she says, "So I understand you have a wife.

And I said, "Yes."

And then she said, "Well, how long have you been together?"

And I said, "Over 30 years."

And she about fell out of the chair.

My husband died at an early age, 51, of a massive heart attack.

And so after I was a bit worn out from 20 years of doing about three full-time jobs at once, family and everything, I went to EDS, Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

All of the women there, seemed to me, that were church related in Cambridge were really meeting and talking and buzzing.

There was a conference at Episcopal Divinity School on women bishops at which I spoke.

And I said, "Well, let's face it.

We're talking about white women because they're the ones with 10 years in ministry and the visibility."

And later a woman called me and said, "Some women would like to put your name in the nominating process for Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts."

And I said, "Well, my name is not gonna go any place, but alright, let them consider it."

Never dreaming, of course, that I would be nominated.

(gentle music) I got a call and the receptionist said, "Bishop Johnson would like to speak to you."

And then there was this long, long pause.

And I thought to myself, why has it taken so long for this guy to tell me that so-and-so has been elected?

Finally, he came on the phone and he said, "We have had an election."

And I said, "Good."

And he said, "And the people have chosen you."

And I sighed and said, "I humbly accept."

And then I said to myself, "Oh crap, that's not what you're supposed to say."

You're supposed to say, "I'll pray about it and get back to you."

(emotional music swells) There are press kit materials in the back.

Well, I'm certainly very pleased that the consent process has moved to its completion and that we are- [Reporter] It took four months for the Reverend Barbara Harris to convince Episcopal Church leaders around the country that she is qualified to become bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

The ordination of women to the priesthood has long been a source of controversy among Christian religions.

And that's why Reverend Harris's election is the focus of worldwide attention.

We recognize that this presents a problem for some people theologically and emotionally.

And we must always move toward some reconciliation within as far as is possible.

(emotional music) (crowd applauding) To work for peace and justice is totally consummate with the gospel.

The words of Jesus saying, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me," because the Lord has appointed me to preach good news to the poor, to set at liberty those who are captive.

[Woman at ceremony] Go forth.

(audience applauding) The peace of the Lord be always with you.

(emotional music) (audience applauding) (birds chirping) [Carter] That has a story behind it.

I'll tell you in a minute.

(women laugh) This chili right here has no beans, but those are the same.

Well, I keep failing retirement.

This is my third time I've retired.

I have friends who keep saying, I just like the parties after when I leave places.

(group laughing) (emotional music) (birds chirping) It's so tiny... (Priests chatting) I remember at Barbara Harris's consecration, you had purple high top sneaks.

I know, I should have brought them.

I was going...

I told Pam that those existed.

She said, "I don't believe it."

I said, "Oh yeah."

(Carter laughing) They don't fit anymore, I've got bunions.

I know.

My bunions don't fit it.

(group laughing) Sophia, God of wisdom, rooted in justice and laughter that springs from joy.

We remember and celebrate the life of Alison, priest and prophet, spouse and mother, grandmother and beloved friend to so many.

I'll remind you that Sophia is an ancient image of God, specifically the wisdom of God.

It's who she was.

Our Alison, ongoing source of Sophia wisdom.

Alison would want me to insist that the Philadelphia ordination was the wake up call to get moving and do what Jesus of Nazareth did, stand with the marginalized and embody courage in the face of cruelty and lies and bullying and violence.

(gentle piano music) How many in the family?

[Woman at foodbank] Seven.

Seven.

It was no coincidence that the 11 of us were white.

We were the only women at that time in the Episcopal Church who were prepared to be ordained to the priesthood.

And that in itself says something about the whiteness and undoubtedly the racism and this white supremacy of the church that had placed us where it did.

(gentle paino music continues) I don't believe this is just Episcopal Church history.

I think that the Episcopal Church in the year 1974 was the context for a much deeper and broader issue.

Misogyny, homophobia, racism are of the same cloth, symbolic of much deeper lack of consciousness that exists today in our country.

(music builds) [All] We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin.

We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen.

[Nancy] I think the church was a new church, became a new church, and is still struggling to being a new church.

I don't know what it's gonna look like, but it's gonna be very different than what it was.

And that's okay.

I've birthed this baby.

I don't, you know, it's gotta grow up.

We gotta help it live.

(gentle piano music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (choral harmonizing)