Women to Officiate at Altars in Pennsylvania; Bishop Issues Special Letter Calling Eucharists Valid
Diocesan Press Service. September 23, 1975 [75328]
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- Three women, ordained in Philadelphia in July 1974, will return to the Diocese of Pennsylvania this fall to officiate at four parish Eucharists.
Speaking in a one-page letter to the diocese, Bishop Lyman Ogilby said he believed the proposed Eucharists "are valid as were the ordinations of the celebrants, though both are certainly uncanonical and irregular." The bishop did not endorse, encourage or approve the service, but a diocesan spokesman said that implicit in the letter was the hope that no legal confrontation would take place.
The first celebration occurred Sept. 21 when the Rev. Suzanne Hiatt officiated at the Church of the Ascension, Parkesburg, Pa. Once Suburban Missioner in Pennsylvania, she is still under Bishop Ogilby's jurisdiction even though presently on the faculty of Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.
In his statement Bishop Ogilby said he had "deliberately refrained" from regularizing Ms. Hiatt's orders or licensing her "because of my pledged responsibilities for the ordered and disciplined life of the Episcopal Church and my commitments to the House of Bishops and the Standing Committee of the Diocese." The Standing Committee endorsed the Bishop's statement.
In addition to Ms. Hiatt, the Rev. Nancy Wittig will officiate at the Church Without Walls, Sept. 28; and the Rev. Jeanette Piccard at Calvary Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, Oct. 5, and at Christ Church and St. Ambrose, Philadelphia, Nov. 23 and 26.