The priest is a woman. Except for that, the Sunday Mass at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park is quite orthodox. The ancient prayers are said with quiet dignity, the proper words are spoken and the appropriate gestures made over the bread and wine. The celebrant is garbed in the time-honored white alb and flowing chasuble. The choir, also robed, leads the singing of familiar hymns, accompanied by a powerful organ. The congregation of about 125 recites the creed, affirming their belief in the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” The worshipers are mostly middle-aged or older, though there is a healthy sprinkling of younger couples with children. At communion time everyone comes forward and kneels at the communion rail. This is the way mass has been celebrated for many decades at Trinity, a red brick building with small-stained glass windows and a somewhat gloomy interior. The assembled parishioners in this upper-middle-class North Shore suburb, many of them third-generation members at Trinity, do not seem inclined toward innovation or radical ideas. No dancing in the sanctuary here, no speaking in tongues, no rock melodies, not even a guitar. Everything is pretty much as it always has been, except that the priest, the Reverend Mollie A. Williams, is a woman.
On this side of the Atlantic, however, the Anglican ordination stirred little visible animosity. After all, the Episcopalian Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, has allowed women priests since 1977; today approximately 10 percent of all U.S. Episcopal priests are female. Some, like Mollie Williams, are serving in pastoral positions. This significant feminization of the ministry would seem to indicate that acceptance prevails in at least one member of the worldwide Anglican family, suggesting that perhaps in time the tolerance learned by the child can be passed to the mother, eventually even to the church of Rome.
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“Everyone is very polite here,” says Williams. “I thought we needed more candor, a better pattern of communication. My idea is to show a lot of assertive leadership early, then give it away, let others take command.” She moved quickly in that direction by challenging the vestry (the Episcopal term for a parish council). “I had to propose a lot things initially, because there weren’t any ideas. Now things are starting to happen.”
The vestry has adopted a more dynamic curriculum for the church school and established five commissions to deal with aspects of church life. Williams says she was pleased when the liturgical commission decided to hold an Easter Vigil service on Holy Saturday. “It hadn’t been done here for many years, and I thought it was too soon to resume. But they said, no, we’ll do it this year.”
The Chicago diocese of the Episcopalian Church numbers 35 women among its 330 priests, according to Reverend Carl Gerdau, canon to Bishop Frank Griswold. Of these, only two hold the title of rector–the top pastoral position in the Episcopal system–that is, a priest in good standing who’s been interviewed by the vestry of a self-sustaining parish and accepts its official call to head the local congregation. And of the two, only one was called by a congregation; the other automatically became a rector when a mission church she was serving became self-supporting. Four of the 35 women are vicars, appointed by the bishop to serve at nonself-sustaining churches. Five, like Williams, are interim rectors, appointed by the bishop for a period of six months to two years to help a parish adjust after a rector leaves. According to the rules, interim rectors cannot succeed themselves as full rectors; they do their job and move on. Two of the women are priests in charge, temporarily appointed to parishes for other reasons. Eight are “assistants” working under rectors, and six have other church-related duties, such as chaplain. Eight are not working in the church in any capacity.
But the issue would not go away. Women’s ordination came up at succeeding Lambeth conferences, and the subject got even hotter after 1967, when women were admitted for the first time as delegates. In 1970 and 1973 the question came to a vote, only to fail by small margins (by one vote in 1970). In 1976 the Lambeth delegates finally agreed in principle that the priesthood of Jesus Christ could be extended to women, but left to individual branches of the Anglican family the decison of whether to ordain. So the debate continued, with the mother church insisting until last March that only men are suited for priesthood, though many of the Church of England’s children–including the churches in Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and the U. S.–accepted women in at least some dioceses. Jacqueline Means, ordained January 1, 1977, in Indianapolis, became the first licitly ordained female Episcopalian priest. Today there are some 1,500 women among the 15,000 Episcopal priests in this country.
The family shifted to a Presbyterian congregation, then to the United Church of Christ. In the late 1970s Williams earned a counseling degree, becoming a social worker and family therapist. In the early 1980s she and Peter reconnected with the Episcopal community. “We will never give this up again,” they decided. At a dinner she met Bishop Griswold’s wife, Phoebe, who discussed plans for rejuvenating the church and then asked Williams, “Now what about your ordination?” It was another moment of truth. Williams updated her theological education and was finally ordained in 1989.
