Women priests in the Anglican, Catholic churches?

Over the past few months I have reported on Calvary Episcopal Church and its first female rector, the Rev. Paula Robinson. In the Weekend Missourian that comes out tomorrow will be a profile I wrote on Rev. Robinson in light of her experience as one of the first female priests ordained in Ireland and as a female priest in the United States today. Check out the article online here.

While the Anglican Church has become increasingly accepting of the ordination of women, the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church still do not allow for female priests. A quick google search reveals that there are numerous groups working to change this in the Catholic Church.  

An AP article from earlier this week on a march in Rome promoting the female priesthood, however, concluded that it will likely never come to being in the Church. Read the article here. 

The Pope’s stance hasn’t kept some women from their mission of serving as priest. In March the St. Louis bishop excommunicated two women illegally ordained and the woman who ordained them. I had (incorrectly) assumed that all Catholics follow Vatican decrees, but Roman Catholic Womenpriests reject the May 2008 decree that “women priests and the bishops who ordain them would be excommunicated” and practice as Catholic priests. Learn about one of these female priests from Sarasota, Fl. in the video below. I found it fascinating.

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Interfaith Festival of Sharing to prepare supplies for missions this weekend

Several Columbia churches are involved with this weekend’s Festival of Sharing at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia. Volunteers from different denominations and congregations all over the state gather annually package supplies for people in need locally and worldwide. 

Click here to read to read the story I wrote about it. 

I talked with several Columbia residents who organize the volunteer efforts for the festival at their churches and was fascinated to learn how so many people have been so dedicated to gathering items and funds to share consistently for the past twenty or thirty years. I heard numerous stories of this mass scale giving and of gathering together with thousands of others to bring mission to life.

Joyce Stanley shared with me how one year a man wanted the quilt that he had made but really wanted the proceeds to go toward the festival. He ended up bidding over $1,000 for his own quilt in the auction.

The video below really gets at the lively, compassionate atmosphere of the event, more so than I could capture in words. Check out the video to see how singing, rice bagging, and individual perspectives capture the life of the event.

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