Philadelphia Event Will Celebrate Ordination of Women in 1974
Episcopal News Service. June 30, 1999 [99-099A]
(ENS) On July 29 the Diocese of Pennsylvania will host an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first "irregular" ordinations of women to the priesthood and how it has affected the church.
Keynote speaker at a special luncheon will be Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of the Church in Southern Africa. A Eucharist at Church of the Advocate, where the ordinations took place, will begin at 5:30. The preacher will be Bishop Barbara Harris of Massachusetts, the first woman to be elected and consecrated as a bishop in the Anglican Communion. She was a member of Church of the Advocate and a crucifer at the 1974 ordinations.
The event will also look into remaining obstacles to the acceptance of the role of women in the church. "We still have a long ways to go in order to realize the fullness of what that ordination meant, especially in terms of its implications for our leadership styles in the church, our image of God theologically, our use of inclusive language liturgically, and our sensitivity to the poverty, the plight of women, and the violence against them around the world," said Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania. He added that Ndungane, who chaired a section dealing with many of these issues at last year's Lambeth Conference, is in a good position to "connect systemically all those issues..."