He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1972, and he went on to work with the poor of Bolivia for five years before being arrested and forced to leave the country, then under the repressive rule of dictator General Hugo Banzer.
In 1980 Fr. Roy became involved in issues surrounding US policy in El Salvador after four US churchwomen – two of them his friends – were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. Fr. Roy became an outspoken critic of US foreign policy in Latin America. Since then, he has spent over four years in US federal prisons for nonviolent protests against the training of Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
In 1990, Roy founded the School of Americas Watch, an office that does research on the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC, at Fort Benning, Georgia. Each year the school trains hundreds of soldiers from Latin America in combat skills – all paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
The School of the Americas Watch, located just outside the main entrance of Fort Benning and in Washington, DC, informs the general public, Congress and the media about the implications of this training on the people of Latin America. Each November, tens of thousands of people converge on Fort Benning to demand closure of the school.
Fr. Roy was the recipient of the 1997 Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award and the 2005 Thomas Merton Award.
In October of 2011 Bourgeois and members of the Women’s Ordination Conference and other groups that support women priests had come to Rome to deliver a petition signed by some 15,000 people backing Bourgeois, who is facing dismissal from his Maryknoll order for his support of women’s ordination.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2008 ordered Bourgeois to recant his support for women priests or risk excommunication after he delivered the homily at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, one of several women who have defied the Vatican.
Church teaching holds that the priesthood is reserved for men, since Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of women’s ordination say there is no theological basis for excluding women from the priesthood, that there is evidence of women priests in the early church and that the Vatican’s ban is purely sexist.
“If the call to be a priest is a gift and comes from God, how can we as men say that our call from God is authentic but God’s call of women is not?” Bourgeois wrote in an open letter to Vatican officials.
BISHOP BRIDGET MARY MEEHAN
Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP, a Sister for Christian Community, serves Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Communities in Florida and in Virginia. She presides at liturgies, officiates at weddings and offers sacramental ministry in both communities. Meehan is author of eighteen books including Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God, a story about her journey to priesthood in the women priest movement that is rocking the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church, a holy shakeup that is bringing new life, creativity and justice to the church and beyond.
Dr. Meehan is currently Dean of the Doctor of Ministry Program for Global Ministries University. Her work in communications media include programs about womenpriests on google and youtube and articles on BridgetMary’s Blogspot. She serves on the media committee for RCWP Association.
Bridget Mary was ordained a priest in the first USA ordination in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006 and was ordained a bishop in Santa Barbara, California in the historic ordination of four bishops in the United States on April 19, 2009.
From Association Of Roman Catholic Women Priests
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests are ordained women who live and minister in the United States and South America. We prepare and ordain qualified women to serve the people of God as priests. We use equal rites to promote equal rights to achieve justice for women in the church.
Our women priests are ordained in Apostolic Succession. The first bishops were ordained by a male Roman Catholic bishop in apostolic succession and in communion with the pope. The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests serves the people of God in inclusive communities where all are welcome to receive sacraments. Our specific charism within the broader global Roman Catholic Women Priests initiative is to live Gospel equality and justice for women in the church and in society now. We work in solidarity with the poor and marginalized for transformative justice in partnership with all believers. Our vision is to live as a community of equals in decision making both as an organization and within all our faith communities. We advocate the renewal of the vision of Jesus in the Gospel in our church and world.
The Roman Catholic Women Priests initiative began in 2002 as a renewal movement within the Roman Catholic Church whose goal is to achieve full equality for women and men within the Church. The common purpose of Roman Catholic Women Priests is to promote the ordination of women in Apostolic Succession as a matter of justice and faithfulness to the Gospel. There are presently women priests’ communities in Germany, Austria, France, Scotland, Canada, the United States, and South America.
As organizations and religious orders evolved, they established different congregations, so too this has happened with Roman Catholic Women Priests. From our birth on the Danube River, Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP) has evolved into two streams in Europe (West and East), two in Canada (West and East), two in the United States (RCWP USA Inc. and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests), and coming soon a stream will flow in South America.
Please visit: http://AssociationOfRomanCatholicWomenPriests.org/
Fr. Roy Bourgeois was born in Lutcher, Louisiana in 1938. He graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana with a Bachelor of Science degree in geology.
Fr. Roy Bourgeois was born in Lutcher, Louisiana in 1938. He graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana with a Bachelor of Science degree in geology.
