Equal Rights Amendment. Women could be priests. All we had to do was pass their tests, proving there was nothing wrong with us. I breathed to my belly as bioenergetics had taught me, puffed out my chest, stood sturdy on both strong legs, and decided to follow these brave women who were making history by overturning the church’s man-on-top arrangements.
“Okay, I’m ready to do it,” I told the rector.
“Do what?” he said with a grin.
(Seduce you.)
“Be a priest.”
“Okay. Wonderful. How come?” he asked.
“You asked,” I said.
“And the church voted. I’ll inform the vestry. I know they’ll sign off on you. So will the bishop. Then you’ll go before Committee One to be screened for postulancy. Here, take this ordination manual home and read it.”
This manual was a weighty book. Books keep me alive; I’d first seen God in a book. Hugging the manual, I headed home, read it in spurts, and almost backed out.
Requirements for ordination were painstakingly comprehensive: physical examination, interview with a shrink, standardized psychological testing, three screening committees, an interview with the bishop, canonical written and oral exams, ordination as a transitional deacon, and then, in six months if you were still breathing, ordination as a priest. There was a standard of learning: demonstrate proficiency in theology, Bible, liturgics (worship), preaching, pastoral care and counseling, church history and patristics (study of early Church Fathers, no mothers named), ethics and moral theology, polity (church governance,) fieldwork in a parish, and anything else you had time for.
My God, I hoped seminary didn’t have many of its own requirements. The job of a parish priest, the expected career track, carried tonnage: leader of a congregation bearing full authority and power over every scrap of community life: administrative, liturgical, instructive, pastoral. Could I do all that?
Who did they think we were, men? Roman Catholic “fathers” weren’t married, but we Episcopalians had big fat lively sex lives. All I’d wanted was the sacraments. Women with all this power and authority could upend centuries of conditioning. In my mind’s eye I saw myself as a small three-year-old striding off to find the right place for herself.
I entered the ordination process in 1977, feeling legitimate, not like an “issue,” yet also not knowing that the bishop of Connecticut at the time had voted against the ordination of women as priests. Trinity’s vestry approved and sponsored me, so the diocese scheduled me for interviews with Committee One, the committee that advised the bishop about granting aspirants the status of postulancy, a status which officially declared an aspirant qualified to be in the track headed for ordination.
The morning of my screening day, my mind woke up in a traffic jam. Who would be on this committee? What should I wear? There was nothing in the manual about dress code. My mother would say, “Be presentable, darling.” I surveyed my closet for what seemed like centuries and selected a black cotton dress with a safe square neckline. Neither Mom nor Mother Church would find slacks presentable.
Dressed presentably, a short, dark-haired woman of thirty-nine, mother of four children, and aspirant to the ordained priesthood, I stood in front of an immense stone retreat house where Committee One met. On the lawn I saw a large statue of the “holy family,” mom, dad, infant son—an image the church adored. I should fit in well here. The hot July sun kissed my face. I blew a kiss back and entered the building.
It was Friday afternoon. We six aspirants, four “older” women, above thirty and just below fifty, and two “younger” men, looking like boys, took our places with six committee members, a fair-game clergy-lay mix, all looking very much older, if not in years then in churched-ness.
After introductions, we discussed the assigned book, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. The old Mexican reprobate alcoholic priest protagonist of Greene’s novel was hardly a model for us to imitate. The question to consider: Did the condition of a priest who administered sacraments affect, for good or ill I presumed, the grace of the sacrament? The answer: Of course not. God, on His perfectly pronouned own, worked the grace angle independent of human effort. I wondered if this choice of reading was meant to stave off any gender bias accusations—a woman couldn’t pollute the sacrament any more than the Mexican drunk, could she?
The Episcopal “cocktail hour” consisted of dry sherry, crackers, and cheese. Lo and behold! The crackers they served were Ritz. I ate exactly five. I have no recollection of dinner. I went to bed early. July aside, I pulled the covers up to my neck and shivered with dread. The crucifix on the wall threw shadows, its cross pieces forming an arrow shape—sharp. I turned away, feeling suddenly so, so sorry for Jesus—and myself.
The next day each aspirant had an hour-long interview with each committee member. A bell rang to signal the next interview. Committee One members were neatly dressed, men in their clerical collars, women in linen skirts, high-necked blouses, stockinged feet, low-heeled pumps, and basic pearls. They all looked cool.
“Good morning, Lyn,” the laywoman with tightly curled graying hair greeted me warmly and folded her hands onto her lap. “I think it’s fair to tell you that I am against the ordination of women, although of course that will not interfere with my ability to screen women fairly.” I admired her pathology. Ding!
•
“How many children do you have, Lyn?”
“Four.”
“Well, that’s two-point-two-four too many. Their ages?”
“Fourteen, thirteen, nine, and about to be seven. They are wonderful . . .” I gushed maternal praises.
Where did he get his stats? The Rev. Reginald Winthrop Pugh III was short, frail for his name, with large glasses and a pointy nose sloped like a carrot on a snowman. He was a gay priest. (Everyone knew and no one told.) Which one of my children would he have me assassinate? Ding!
•
“Who will supervise your children while you study and while you take on the duties of a priest, assuming of course that you make it through this process?” asked another primly suited laywoman inquired with raised eyebrow, trying to look as if her question was genuine and she expected a real answer. I told her my mother would help out and wondered if this were a screening for priests or mothers. Ding!
•
The Rev. Charles Youngsterman had been around the church a very long time, his fingers in about every aspect of its life. “My dear, I liked your essay on vocation and vision. However, you have written about a model of priesthood you call supplemental. We don’t have that here. In Connecticut we ordain rectors for parishes.”
“Oh, I want to be a rector, definitely. But I thought we were writing a vision. Couldn’t there be some priests not in full-time paid parish ministry who could help parish clergy out from time to time but work outside the church proper in pastoral ministries?” Ding!
(Much later I discovered that my model had precedent. Worker priests had at one time been ordained in the Roman Catholic Church and sent into the field to do pastoral care with workers on the docks in Marseilles. The movement worked well until bishops called the priests “home” to parishes, under the watchful eye of their diocesan bosses. Too much extra-parochial priestly activity could get out of control. I didn’t realize it then, but I was describing the eventual shape of my own priesthood.)
