Dozens gather in support of women's ordination

McALLEN – Advocates of women in the priesthood gathered at First Christian Church on Friday for an event encouraging more inclusive religious hierarchies.

The Rev. Linda Whitworth-Reed told audience members how she developed an interest in becoming a minister, recalling times when strangers would approach her in church and asking her where she performed clergy functions.

"How could I ignore that kind of calling?" she asked. "The wonderful thing is that I get to do it with my life partner, my husband."

Speakers included Whitworth, co-pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in McAllen, and the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest and founder of School of the Americas Watch, an activist group that monitors U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

The priest’s visit was coordinated by members of Call to Action’s Rio Grande Valley chapter and was the latest stop in his national Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling Tour.

Bourgeois recalled an altercation between himself and the Vatican after he showed support for women’s ordination by delivering a homily at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska last year in Kentucky. She was the sixth woman ordained as a priest that year in the United States, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Bourgeois, 70, began his 36-year ministry as a Maryknoll priest in Bolivia. He has been an outspoken critic of American foreign policy in Latin America since 1980, when a Salvadoran death squad raped and killed four American church women.

"It’s a challenging walk," Whitworth-Reed said. "Only God can strengthen someone for this kind of call."