Category: feminism

• There’s a Woman in the Pulpit

  When I worked in parish ministry, and still when I preside at weddings, I am often confused for someone else – the secretary, the photographer, the wedding planner, or a bridesmaid.  I don’t mind.  I don’t wear my priesthood on my sleeve.  I grew up with men at the altar and it took me time…

  May 15, 2015

• The Descent of Mother Phoenix

  Most new babies come into the world cloaked in celebration and the chattering of new life.   What my faith and experience has taught me, though, is where there is something new being born, something old is dying.  After spending a couple of weeks with my new-mama sister I was reminded of the sacrificial face of…

  April 13, 2015

• The Woman Beneath the Vestments: My unconventional story of salvation

  I have always been quietly confident; blessed to be born into a family and in a time and place where women were encouraged to be whatever they wanted to be in the world. So when I was ordained a Catholic priest in 2007 there wasn’t a lot of shock in it, just another step for…

  March 8, 2015

• I’m trying to just “Let it go!”

  “It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small.”  Queen Elsa When Frozen hit the box office and smashed it to smithereens, I went into austerity mode.  “My daughter must not see it!” I thought.  “I don’t want her walking like a Disney princess, talking like a Disney princess, being needy and codependent like a…

  February 16, 2015

• Being a Woman, Being Human: Part I

   “I always feel better about myself when I think of myself as a human before I think of myself as a woman,” she explains, “because there are expectations attached to being a girl or a woman that, when I remember that I’m just a person, really kind of fall away.” Tavi Gevinson, founder of Rookie,…

  February 7, 2015