Strong reactions to Iowa City woman’s ordination

Not a woman of God.

There is no he or she in God's eyes.

An obvious contradiction.

Those are some of the reactions in interviews and on the Internet late this week to the desire of Mary Kay Kusner, of Iowa City, to become an ordained priest but also remain a Roman Catholic.

Read May 27th article: Iowa City woman seeks ordination, but wants to remain Catholic

Kusner, 50, is to be ordained June 13 at First Christian Church, 900 Lincolnshire Pl., Coralville, by an international group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a move the Catholic Church does not condone. A story about her was in Thursday's Gazette.

“If she's proclaiming that she has to stay Catholic, there is no other faith, then she has to go by our rules that say there are no women priests,” said Mary Moravek, 51, of Mechanicsville. Moravek is a member of St. Mary's Catholic Churches in both Solon and Mechanicsville and lifelong Catholic.

“I think there's enough dissension in the church without people having to make more waves about things that don't make the church better,” Barbara Klawiter, 53, a lifelong Catholic from Cedar Rapids, said. “It doesn't make it worse, but it doesn't make it better.”

Marilyn Gray, a Lutheran from Wyoming, Iowa, acknowledged that she's freer than her Catholic friends to say some things. Parishioners need to stand up, she said, particularly when the church is struggling to fill priest positions.

“It's the old world and the new world clashing in a big degree,” Gray, 68, said. “The Roman Catholic Church isn't going to change. Just like everything else when you want change you have to start at the grass roots - and those roots aren't going to change.”

Kusner considers herself a devout Catholic. She has worked for 20 years as a palliative care chaplain at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.

She became acquainted a few years ago with Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization founded in 2002 to create leadership opportunities for women in the Catholic Church. It is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church but has female bishops and priests serving across the United States as well as in parts of Europe and Canada.

The group ordained Kusner as a deacon in August.

Tradition, doctrine

faith, Gospel cited

in responses

The Gazette

Not a woman of God.

There is no he or she in God's eyes.

An obvious contradiction.

Those are some of the reactions in interviews and on the Internet late this week to the desire of Mary Kay Kusner, of Iowa City, to become an ordained priest but also remain a Roman Catholic.

Kusner, 50, is to be ordained June 13 at First Christian Church, 900 Lincolnshire Pl., Coralville, by an international group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a move the Catholic Church does not condone. A story about her was in Thursday's Gazette.

“If she's proclaiming that she has to stay Catholic, there is no other faith, then she has to go by our rules that say there are no women priests,” said Mary Moravek, 51, of Mechanicsville. Moravek is a member of St. Mary's Catholic Churches in both Solon and Mechanicsville and lifelong Catholic.

“I think there's enough dissension in the church without people having to make more waves about things that don't make the church better,” Barbara Klawiter, 53, a lifelong Catholic from Cedar Rapids, said. “It doesn't make it worse, but it doesn't make it better.”

Marilyn Gray, a Lutheran from Wyoming, Iowa, acknowledged that she's freer than her Catholic friends to say some things. Parishioners need to stand up, she said, particularly when the church is struggling to fill priest positions.

“It's the old world and the new world clashing in a big degree,” Gray, 68, said. “The Roman Catholic Church isn't going to change. Just like everything else when you want change you have to start at the grass roots - and those roots aren't going to change.”

Kusner considers herself a devout Catholic. She has worked for 20 years as a palliative care chaplain at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.

She became acquainted a few years ago with Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization founded in 2002 to create leadership opportunities for women in the Catholic Church. It is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church but has female bishops and priests serving across the United States as well as in parts of Europe and Canada.

The group ordained Kusner as a deacon in August.