For those of us who have been campaigning for a renewed priesthood within a renewed Church, the Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW) Conference in Dublin, Ireland (June 29-July 1, 2001) was a ‘kairos,' a significant happening in the life of the Church. It was so, in my view, not so much because of the excellence of what was said at the Conference (cf. www.eriebenedictines.org), but because of the politics involved in who, in actual fact, said these excellent things.

Well in advance of the WOW Conference, the Vatican did everything in its power to destroy or discredit it. It successfully pressured Aruna Gnanadason, an official of the World Council of Churches to withdraw her commitment to be the meeting's keynote speaker. It would appear that the Vatican did so by threatening to withdraw itself from commissions involving the World Council of Churches.

The Vatican also pressured the significant authorities among the sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA, to forbid respectively Sr. Myra Poole and Sr. Joan Chittister not only to speak at, but also to attend the conference. The threatened penalty for disobedience was expulsion from their respective communities and, possibly, excommunication.

After a painful, soul searching journey, both sisters attended and spoke. The case of Sr. Joan Chittister is particularly significant. Author of some 20 books and one of America's best-known nuns, Chittister went through weeks of turmoil and hours of discussion with her prioress, Sr. Christine Vladimiroff.

Members of the Vatican Congregation for religious communities requested that Sr. Christine deliver a formal letter of obedience to Sr. Joan. Basing herself on the 1500 year old Benedictine model of obedience, where a responsible decision is made after communal discernment of the will of the Spirit, as opposed to the Vatican military model, Sr. Christine respectfully declined the Vatican request in a formal letter that was signed by 127 of the 128 active nuns in the community. Furthermore, 35 of the younger nuns signed a statement of solidarity asking that any punishment meted out by the Vatican to Sr. Joan be given to them as well.

After her talk, for which she received a long standing ovation, Sr. Joan said:  “This isn't an ordination question. This is a question of freedom of speech, of human rights, authority, adulthood and development of doctrine in the church. This is a question of the ‘sensus fidelium.’”

This was an incredibly successful and historic conference, because it proved once and for all that the women's ordination movement was not just a North American phenomenon as claimed by the Vatican, but a truly catholic one. In view of this, what would the Vatican response be? What disciplinary measures would it mete out on its offending subjects?

Here comes the punch line of this commentary: the Vatican media spokesman, in an effort at damage control, informed the press that the Congregation for Religious Life had decided ‘in this case’ not to take disciplinary measures into consideration.

What does this say to us who dedicate our lives to a renewed priesthood of men and women -single, married or partnered -within a renewed Church: one that images more the life and gospel of Jesus than the subtleties of Canon Law?