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Fall 2000

Deus Caritas
A message from the Presiding Bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in North America, the Most Reverend Francis P. Facione, Ph.D.

With this issue, we complete one year of publication of New Perspectives. My brother bishops and I are very grateful for the outstanding ability of our editor, Ms. Valerie Kane, whose talent, commitment, and energy are largely responsible for this accomplishment. Our goal was to develop a quarterly publication that would not only present the Old Roman Catholic Church to the world but also present issues and controversies impacting the universal Church. By reason of her experience and faith, Ms. Kane has successfully led our editorial and publication team to this end. Thank you, Valerie, for making New Perspectives a reality.

As our readers are aware, NP has explored issues of concern to the Church as it enters the third millennium of Christianity. The intent has been to inform and to initiate discussion-perhaps, even debate-on these issues, considered by many as central to the very essence of the Church as we understand it. Such is the case in this, our fall issue. The question of admission of women to Holy Orders and formal ministry in the Church is one that is wrenching the hearts of many and causing pain to all. A question, not easily discussed, it has become a divisive factor throughout the Western Church. Within the Anglican Communion, which approbated ordination of women more than twenty-five years ago, there is still no unanimity. Rather, that communion of Churches has witnessed the genesis of ecclesial bodies collectively known as Continuing Anglican. These bodies count among their reasons for existence opposition to the admission of women to Orders. Regretfully, the issue has exerted an almost overwhelming influence on the Churches of the Utrecht Union as well. To some observers, the force of that impact may well force a redefinition, if not disintegration, of the Union as presently constituted. Not unexpectedly, the same issue impacts several Old Catholic ecclesial bodies not aligned with the Utrecht Union, chiefly in North America. Efforts to foster relationships leading to convergence may well falter as more of these Churches opt for the admission of women to Holy Orders.

The debate over ordination of women is, perhaps, most vitriolic within Roman Catholic circles in the United States and Canada. Outspoken advocates include many women religious, a number of lay men and women, and many priests and members of men's religious communities. Each stands ready to expound at length on his or her view of the perceived injustice of recent papal pronouncements maintaining an all-male priesthood and deaconate.

Clearly this issue is both emotional and controversial. One may then legitimately question why the Old Roman Catholic Church in North America, which does not admit women to Holy Orders, would explore this matter within the pages of its journal. The best response to such a query is that this is an issue that strikes at the very heart of the historic Church's understanding of the priesthood, and is one of many that constitute the current crisis in the Church. It bears discussing. Indeed, it cries for reasoned discussion. In the hope that we shall contribute to such reasoned discussion, we include three varying views of the controversy in this issue of New Perspectives.