Rise Catholic Women: You Hold the Key

By Sarah Harding

Women hold the key for the solution to success in our Roman Catholic Church. This key has been hidden! Rise Catholic Women will not only tell you why, but how women can unlock the secrets that have been hidden from them, and expose the unnecessary control of men in decision making in the church.

This informative book provides mostly unknown facts about the reasons priests are not allowed to marry. It answers questions that our pastors have been encouraged not to discuss.

Sarah Harding shows us that even though statistics show the Catholic church is doing well in the United States, the influx of the Latino communities in our Church has covered up the fact that the non- Latino Catholic population has diminished. The shortage of priests has affected the salvation of souls to a large degree. Women need to rise and face the challenge to be heard. We need all our priests, not just those who have courageously endured celibacy, but the other one third who have left the Church to marry.

There are twenty-thousand priests in the United States alone who have left the Church to marry. These priests could be called back to shepherd our churches. You hold the key to unlock the door for them to help save our Roman Catholic Church in America.

Note from the author: I am extremely grateful for the professional help given to me by my daughter and granddaughter, Mary Alice Loucks and Nicole McMahon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490855127

Sarah Harding

Sarah Harding has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1974, and has been teaching and translating since completing a three-year retreat in 1980 under the guidance of Kyabjé Kalu Rinpoché. She was associate professor at Naropa University for twenty-five years in Boulder, Colorado, where she currently resides, and has been a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation since 2000. She specializes in literature with a focus on tantric practice. Her publications include Creation and Completion; The Treasury of Knowledge: Esoteric Instructions; Niguma, Lady of Illusion; and two volumes on Chö and Shijé from The Treasury of Precious Instructions.

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Copyright © 2014 Sarah Harding.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 2973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-5513-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5511-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5512-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917771

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/21/2014

Contents

Introduction

1 Sarah, with an H

2 Married Priests

3 Five Women Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah

4 Greater

5 A World Gone Mad

6 Hope from the Popes

7 Women at the Cross

8 Hildegard

9 The Feeding of the 5,000

10 Hear the Word of the Lord.

11 The Rosary

12 Catholic Women Rising

13 Margaret

14 Nuns on the Bus

15 Holy Smoke

16 The Ant and the Statue

17 Statistics

18 The Purchase

If the sweep of teaching in the tradition holds the key to unlocking a future for women in the church, it will only be discovered by the persistent pronouncement of an alternative tradition, strong enough to erode the layers of history that has kept the key hidden.

—Tom Roberts, National Catholic Reporter

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Introduction

Can you envision your Catholic church today pastored by a married priest and assisted by a woman deacon? The altar boys and girls are seeing a future for themselves in the structure of the church they are serving. All the congregation is singing joyfully and responding so enthusiastically that even the little mouse in the corner would want to be accepted into this God-loving community. Those attending are enthusiastic because they are not just attending. They are able to be Catholics. The divorced are no longer shunned. The young married couples are no longer strapped by stringent birth-control rules. Nuns are now considered clerics and can have an equal voice to the men in Rome. Here is the Catholic Church of the future that will have a future in America.

We have entered a time in our Catholic Church where women have lost the little influence they once had in leading our churches. There has been a dramatic decline in women entering religious life. The few that remain cannot even be classified as clergy, and these few have recently been put under the control of bishops.

Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter recently commented,

I f the sweep of teaching in the tradition holds the key to unlocking a future for women in the church, it will only be discovered by the consistent pronouncement of an alternate tradition, strong enough to erode the layers of history that has kept the key hidden. ¹

Thank you, Tom Roberts, for calling attention to the fact that we need to speak up. We cannot only find this key; we can and will use it. We will use it to show our colleagues in Christ not only the roots of women in biblical history but also the facts that alter the reasoning and assumptions that have led to the exclusion of women. We are strong enough to lead a woman-driven narrative, and we are equal in numbers and abilities to do this.

The celibacy requirements for priests also leave out the influence of women in our church. If popes were allowed to be married in the early church, it seems that in this dire time of need for pastors, we could allow the twenty thousand who have left to marry back to their clerical state. Most Catholics and many priests are in favor of allowing priests to marry.

Much has been said by Pope Francis about Catholics coming out of isolation. St. Hildegard tells us we need to be awake. We can take this one step further and rise. Catholic women need to rise and be that key that Tom Roberts refers to.

¹ http://futurechurch.org/women-in-church-leadership/women-and-word/resource/women-and-word-resources-for-educators.

1

Sarah, with an H

From my kitchen window, I can see clearly a huge, almost ancient maple tree. It towers over the stately brick Catholic school that once echoed the joyous voices of many arduous youngsters. The tree, once magnificent, was a shelter from the hot sun for the children as they played chicken and pom-pom pull-a-way during their lunch break. Now it must come down because its branches are weary and could be a danger.

The tree speaks of gracefulness, its limbs flowing outstretched as if in prayer. Some limbs are missing now, and it reminds me of a person growing old. If we study a tree in winter, we will notice it is really awesome without its leaves. There are more branches than we can count, and each one is remarkably different. Branches extend from branches and branches from limbs, manifesting a unique and masterful work of art. We must destroy this beautiful masterpiece now for man’s convenience.

I can relate with the tree, for I am growing old; and even though my branches are creaking, I still have a beautiful life. Just as the tree could tell stories from the schoolyard it has protected all these years, I want to tell my story, and my story needs to be heard. The spirit of women needs to be interjected into the male-dominated Catholic Church. Men and women of Catholic faith have a magnificent church that, through misunderstanding, has not allowed the spirit of women to be molded into its guidance. It is missing the gracefulness of its branches and has become more like an evergreen tree, without the uniqueness that spring gives to its leaf-bearing friends.

The tree is still standing, although we assume its time is short. Life is much like a tree. Our branches are what we create at different periods of our lives. We have family trees with our ancestors represented on the branches, but the tree I’m imagining is my tree of faith. The roots of my Catholic faith were very near the tree I described. It was the Catholic school, not in its present form, but it was there that I found God, very near the roots of the old tree.

We cannot bring back the past, but we can learn from it. I would