Photograph by Frank Di Piazza
Who is this woman, a former editor at a fairly conservative religious press, who has raised an international ruckus by allowing a female bishop, outside the bounds of Roman Catholicism, to ordain her? Elsie Hainz McGrath eagerly converted to Catholicism at 17, when she married her husband. This was pre–Vatican II Catholicism: “I loved the fact that everything you wanted to know, they would tell you,” she admits wryly. “All you had to do was obey, which was exactly how I’d been raised.” Indeed, after Vatican II she quit going to Mass for a while: “They took away my answers,” she says, sounding both cheated and amused.
She dove back into the faith after a Marriage Encounter weekend: “It forced me into digging until I discovered what I really felt about the questions they asked,” she explains. “Overnight, I went from this ridiculous person who wanted all the answers to a flaming liberal.” She earned a bachelor’s, then a master’s, in theology, and when her husband decided to become a deacon, she studied alongside him—then had to stand by quietly while he was ordained.
She’s not quiet anymore: She and another St. Louis woman, Rose Marie Dunn Hudson, were ordained November 11. Archbishop Raymond Burke called the ceremony “a violation of what is most sacred to us in the Church, one of the sacraments” and said, “It imperils the eternal salvation of the women seeking the attempted ordination … [and] generates confusion among the faithful.” Rabbi Susan Talve kicked up a storm by opening the doors of Central Reform Congregation to the women, which Burke called “a grave violation of the mutual respect” that should exist between the Jewish and Roman Catholic faiths. The Rev. Marek Bozek of St. Stanislaus risked his priesthood by wearing his priestly vestments and blessing the women; Burke has begun proceedings to defrock him. McGrath and Hudson, meanwhile, have rented space at a Unitarian church, where they celebrate a liturgy with a small but growing community every Sunday. Burke issued a declaration of their excommunication in March.
When did you first think of becoming a priest? It never entered my mind until April 2006, when I met Patricia Fresen. [A former South African nun, Fresen was ordained, then pronounced a bishop, by a Roman Catholic bishop acting outside the church.] When she told her story, I just kept thinking, “Oh my God, I was so incredibly wrong about this [women-priests] movement.” I’d written the whole thing off as buying into the existing system. She connected it to breaking apartheid in South Africa; she said the only way to change an unjust law is to break it.
Were you always feisty? Oh no. I was always the one who wouldn’t step forward, who always kept quiet and avoided confrontation and didn’t want anybody to notice me. If I was pushed far enough, I would stand up for what I knew was right—but most of the time I was never pushed.
You don’t wear the Roman collar or ask to be called anything but Elsie. Do you think you would have met with more resistance if you’d adopted the traditional clothing and title? I never even thought about that. Actually, I think the primary reason we’re getting such overwhelming support is because we have been so ridiculously and vehemently skewered by the archbishop. He has been the most marvelous PR person.
What else surprised you? Well, I did not expect that because we walked into a Jewish synagogue and felt at home and made our plans to be ordained there, it would start World War III. I feel very bad for Susan [Talve, whose involvement was characterized as meddling in another religion’s affairs]. But [Burke] couldn’t really do anything to us. We’re not employed by him, and we don’t accept excommunication; it’s a man-made law. Literally. So I think part of his strategy, part of his punishment for all this, is to inflict injustice upon everyone who had the unadulterated nerve to welcome us.
The archbishop has said that you two are risking eternal damnation. But others are catching more worldly heat—
especially after he asked St. Cronan to rescind an invitation to Rabbi Talve to speak at their church, and instead the parish held the talk under a tent in the street. Louise Lears, a Sister of Charity who came to the ordination and who is a member of the pastoral team at St. Cronan, was summoned to the chancery with a canon lawyer and issued a canonical admonition. Co-pastor Gerry Kleba, a diocesan priest, was invited to the archbishop’s residence for a conversation. Marek Bozek is being laicized [removed from the priesthood].
Is it worth all this? Yes. It’s difficult to see other people being treated unjustly as a result of something that we did, but at the same time, it’s heartening that people are willing to publicly take these stands that up until now haven’t been taken. The more it happens, the more people are beginning to think things through for themselves and say—what’s the Network line? “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Do you consider yourself Roman Catholic? Absolutely. We are validly ordained Roman Catholic priests in the apostolic order, and not only are we claiming that for ourselves, but I firmly believe that Brother Raymond knows we are validly ordained in the apostolic order, because if he really thought we were not, he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.
What is your favorite part of the priestly role? I don’t really feel like there’s anything I’m doing now that I couldn’t have done before I was a priest. We believe in the priesthood of the baptized: Everyone can validly do what we are doing.
So why bother with the designation? In this particular day and age, we have to be ordained first, because otherwise we wouldn’t be accepted as valid leaders of the church in the same way that priests are. But part of our role is to educate people into their own priesthood. Jesus prayed that we would be one.
Could you find common ground to celebrate a liturgy with Archbishop Burke? [Silence.] I actually had a priest friend of mine—a legal priest—say he’d love to concelebrate with me. I could easily see myself concelebrating with this particular friend in a catacomb somewhere. But I can’t envision it with Brother Raymond. The easy response is “He’d never do it.” But I’m not really sure I would do it either. I would have to have a much purer heart.
How did being ordained change you? Patricia made it clear to us that when she laid hands on us, she was conferring the power conferred on her in a lineage all the way back to the apostles. And she said, “At the time of the prostration [when they were to lie face-down on the ground], you are giving yourself up totally to God.” I really prayed for the humility to prostrate myself on that day. My whole life, that’s been something I was deathly afraid to pray for, because I was afraid I might get it.
Your ordination’s been called everything from a sham to the work of Satan. What stung the most? When my daughter-in-law said, “Thank God you’re not a real priest, or I wouldn’t be able to go to church anymore.”
Ouch. What about the rest of your family? I have four kids. The one who goes to church doesn’t have anything to do with me. The others are supportive but unchurched. Some of my grandchildren are actually coming to my Masses.
How are friends and strangers reacting? It was interesting when the Christmas cards started coming in. First, the people who always send cards—and didn’t. And then the short, vague notes on so many of the cards that did come: “God bless you” or “We’re praying for you,” and no specific reference to why. But most of all, I am amazed at the sheer number of religious sisters who are coming on a near weekly basis to our Masses. And often a layperson will say, “I’m also here representing so-and-so, because she can’t come, but she’s with you.”
Have any doors closed since your ordination? I was expelled from a class I was auditing at Aquinas Institute, because it would cause scandal for Aquinas to be associated with a female student who would be an ordained Roman Catholic priest—even though if she were going to be ordained Unitarian or Episcopal, there would be no problem.
It’s been said that women can’t be priests because Jesus and the church had a spousal relationship—what does that mean? Oh, I think the church has always had an incredible hang-up and preoccupation with issues of sex. Also a warped notion of what makes a woman womanly and how intercourse is perverted or just plain downright evil unless it’s procreative. It goes back beyond Christianity and Judaism to the temple prostitutes. It’s sick.
Does working outside the hierarchy mean you obey no one? We took an oath of prophetic obedience to the Holy Spirit. One of the things very important to the reform of the church is to educate people on the true meaning of obedience. This lockstep crap of “I have to do what he tells me to do because he’s the bishop”—hmmph! Obedience to God means obedience to the prophetic spirit that lives within us and among us, that we can hear in our innermost self, if we listen, and speaking to us from other people. But not from somebody who stands over you and tells you what you may and may not do because that person knows better than you do what God wants.
How can you be sure you’re not just obeying your own wishes? That’s something I questioned a lot when I was younger. People do horrendous things because they “heard God” telling them to do it. There is obviously an ability to deceive ourselves—and often it’s chemically enhanced. But over the long haul, there’s a sense of rightness, a feeling of peace that comes with following the true voice. It’s not there if you’re making it up as you go along.
How would you structure the larger church? It would look different in different places, because it would be ethnically and culturally meaningful. That this Roman church seems to think that every place in the world should be exercising this European rite in a European manner is ridiculous.
So how would it look in St. Louis’ culture? I’d imagine a lot of small church communities that gathered together because they shared a common vision or ministry and could support one another in what they were doing to make the world better. They would celebrate together by breaking bread, and every once in a while groups would come together for a big celebration. People would be in community with people of like skills and interests, they’d have a common ministry, but different faith experiences, and through their sharing they’d come to understand that there is one God and one church, whether we call ourselves Catholic or Baptist or Buddhist. Our purpose for being is to help each other. Love each other. Promote the common good.
