Womens ordination advocates post
sign from God in Chicago
By ROBERT McCLORY
Special Report Writer Chicago
The Womens Ordination Conference wants to assist the Chicago
archdiocese in its ongoing campaign to recruit candidates for the priesthood.
But archdiocesan authorities may not appreciate the groups help, which
consists of dozens of signs throughout the Chicago area and a large billboard
calling for the ordination of women.
The project, said Womens Ordination Conference executive
director Deborah Halter, is a good example of what can happen when people
respond creatively to something they cant take anymore.
The something in this case is a number of archdiocesan
billboard signs that were introduced last fall. The message is short and
simple: If youre looking for a sign from God, this is it! Consider
the priesthood. Below that message is the Web site address of the
archdiocese.
In early June the Womens Ordination Conference began
proclaiming a somewhat different message. A 14-foot-high billboard along the
much-traveled TriState Tollway in Chicagos south suburbs says,
Youre looking for a sign from God? This is it. Ordain women.
Below are the phone number and Web address for the Womens Ordination
Conference. The billboard is located near a tollbooth where drivers must slow
down and is just 10 blocks south of one of the archdiocesan billboards. The
group is also placing 304 signs, each a foot high, at Chicago Transit Authority
commuter stations, with a silhouette of a woman lifting a chalice and the
words, Ordain women as Roman Catholic priests, in Spanish, German,
Polish and Latin.
The advertising initiative was sparked at a Womens
Ordination Conference-sponsored gathering of some 40 women in the Chicago area
with theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether last February. While the group was
lamenting the males-only-need-apply nature of the recruitment invitation, Mary
Beth Lang, a 38-year-old mother of two, wondered, Would it be OK if we
put up a billboard, too?
The words just seemed to come out of the blue, said
Halter, who was present at the meeting. It electrified the air, and
everyone started buzzing at once.
Lang told NCR she first got the idea when the archdiocesan
billboards went up but had not said anything until the meeting.
Within days a sign committee sent e-mail to friends and
acquaintances seeking funding for the project. We had no idea what these
things cost or even if we could do it, said Deirdre ONeill, a board
member. We trusted the Holy Spirit.
Thus far some $12,000 has been raised, more than enough for a
one-month rental of the billboard and the placement of signs at commuter
stations. Its worked out well, and everyone is enthusiastic,
ONeill said. We even got the same company to produce the signs that
the archdiocese hired for theirs.
National Catholic Reporter, June 16,
2000
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