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Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2008

Jessamine woman to be ordained a priest

As a young girl growing up in Milwaukee, Janice Sevre-Duszynska often fantasized about becoming a priest while helping clean the sanctuary of the church her family attended.

“I’d sit in the priest’s chair, go to the pulpit, make believe I was preaching and giving communion,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why couldn’t I be up here?’”

Now, 50 years later, she will get her wish, but it could come with a price — excommunication from the Roman Catholic church. On Aug. 9, in defiance of the church’s 2,000-year ban on women in the priesthood, she will be ordained by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an activist group that has protested the ban since 2002.

Sevre-Duszynska, 58, a Jessamine County resident and grandmother of three, has protested the church’s stance for the last decade.

In 1998, she disrupted the ordination of a Lexington priest at the Cathedral of Christ the King by pleading with then-Bishop J. Kendrick Williams to ordain her as well. In 2000, she impersonated a reporter to attend an annual meeting of Catholic bishops in Washington, D.C., where she grabbed the microphone and again called for the ordination of women. And in 2002, she was arrested as part of a group protesting ordination of deacons by the Catholic Diocese of Atlanta.

“To refer to God only in masculine terms empowers men but diminishes women,” said Sevre-Duszynska (pronounced sev-ruh duh-SHIN-ska). “It affects how women are treated, how their children are treated. We come from God also.”

The church’s position

But the church remains steadfast in its tradition, arguing that it follows Christ’s example of selecting men as apostles.

“The church understands that in acting this way, Christ was showing his will,” said T.F. Shaughnessy, spokesman for the Diocese of Lexington. “The church does not have the authority to contravene the authority of Jesus.”

But women do fill key positions in the church, Shaughnessy said. In the Lexington diocese, those positions include director of the Tribunal, the local church court; a diocesan secretary, who reports directly to the bishop; and principals in Catholic schools.

“Basically, women can do everything in the church except perform the sacraments,” Shaughnessy said. “Men and women both have dignity, but we each have roles. ... The most revered saint in Catholic canon is the Blessed Mother (Mary), so it’s kind of ludicrous to say that the church disrespects women.”

The Vatican reaffirmed its position against women priests in May when it decreed that anyone who participates in the ordination of a woman is immediately excommunicated, meaning that they have chosen to cut themselves off from receiving the sacraments.

But Sevre-Duszynska, who will be ordained at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, does not fear excommunication. She expects it. “I’m really waiting for that parchment from Rome,” she said.

She became eligible for excommunication in 2006 when she was ordained a deacon by Roman Catholic Womenpriests. According to Catholic church doctrine, that office must also be reserved for men. Deacons perform many duties of priests, such as baptisms, marriages and funerals, but they cannot say Mass, consecrate the Eucharist or hear confessions.

Sevre-Duszynska believes that Catholicism is too exclusive. “Roman Catholic Womenpriests believe in inclusivity — men, women, married, divorced, disabled,” she said.

A priest on the streets

While she won’t be allowed to lead a parish, Sevre-Duszynska plans to continue her work as a community activist, a role for which she is known nationwide.

In 2001, she served a 90-day sentence after being charged with trespassing at Fort Benning, Ga., while protesting that the former School of the Americas, now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, was training terrorists. As she completed her sentence, she was fired from her job as a teacher of English as a second language by the Fayette County school district for not fulfilling the terms of her teaching contract. Her dismissal was ultimately overturned in a series of court decisions. She retired from the district in 2005.

In 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, she was arrested again, for trespassing at a Nevada weapons testing site.

“My heroes as priests are on the fringes ... they need to challenge the government and the Vatican,” Sevre-Duszynska said.

Sevre-Duszynska began her preparation for the priesthood 10 years ago with night classes at Lexington Theological Seminary. She is working to complete her doctor of ministry with Global Ministries University, based in California.

She is also considering offers to minister. “I’ve been asked to say Mass in September at the Catholic Workers House in Washington, D.C. I will consider that,” she said. “I also plan to continue my peace and justice work.”

She sees herself as an itinerant priest, not a parish priest.

“I’m happiest as a priest on the streets,” she said. “I will celebrate the Mass, I will celebrate the sacraments. But I intend to be out there on the streets being a voice for the voiceless.”