Advocacy and Exile: Roy Bourgeois and the Fight for Women’s Ordination
“What I came to, is that as Catholic priest, I was in a profession that discriminated against women.” – Roy Bourgeois
It has been seven years since Roy Bourgeois was laicized and excommunicated from the Catholic Church for advocating for women’s equality.
Ordained a priest in 1972, Roy’s remarkable journey includes a Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar nomination, serving in the US Navy in Vietnam, living as a missionary in Bolivia, serving several prison sentences for protesting, and becoming a founder of the School of the Americas (SOA) Watch, a broadly-supported movement to end U.S. militarism in Latin America. Along the way, he made friends with the women who would open his heart to systems of injustice in which he was embedded: sexism and misogyny in the Catholic Church.
This February, as Pope Francis and the Bishops will meet to discuss the ongoing sex abuse crisis, Roy’s experience gives us a window into a secretive clerical culture that seems unlikely to reform itself. Roy was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and laicized from the Maryknoll Order of priests because he followed his conscience, choosing to listen to people of faith rather than blindly follow tradition – an exclusionary act, which Roy observed, that corresponds to the Church’s history of institutional racism.
Roy turned 81 this January and his timeless grin continues to radiate out of his bright blue eyes. He chose to live in solidarity with his friends, and a decision like that, despite the consequences, brings peace. Throughout his life, Roy allowed his power to be challenged, and his heart to remain open. His story is compelling because it shows that important paradigm shifts can occur at any age if we allow ourselves to be open. Sadly, his story also shows how clergy will turn on their own, if their power is threatened.
I first met Roy in 2015 during the last SOA Watch convergence held at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia. If you are not familiar with the movement, I would recommend watching this Empire Files episode for background, in which Roy is featured. At the time, I knew who he was but I did not fully understand his impact until I read his remarkable biography Disturbing the Peace. The following year, I attended the first SOA Watch Encuentro in Nogales, AZ/Mexico. We shared margaritas one evening, which led to a letter-writing friendship. I’d long wanted to hear more of Roy’s personal journey and he agreed to a phone interview this past December. This article is based on that conversation.
For many Catholics, 2018 was a year of reckoning. I personally have come to a new spiritual place in recent months and I frequently thought of Roy’s journey during my reflections. What I wanted to learn from Roy was this: How did his encounter with women called to be Catholic priests change his worldview? How did it feel to be excommunicated and cut off from the ministry to which he gave his life? What does it mean to be an outsider in the Church?
All quotes below are attributed to Roy, from two phone conversations in December 2018.
Paradigm shift
“Something happened after many years of organizing for SOA Watch. I started meeting women in my talks around the country who would say:
‘You’re a Catholic priest, I’m a devout Catholic woman—and I too am called by God to be a priest, like you are.’ And I remember the first woman I’d met, being somewhat surprised. Not threatened by her, but let’s just say it kept me awake at night. First one woman, then two, then another and another and it really forced me to think about what they were saying. They ask—’why is your call from God as a man to be a priest authentic, but my call by God as a woman to be a priest not authentic?’”
Rather than explain the injustice away with the usual talking points, Roy considered the words of his friends.
“It didn’t take that long to realize that what these women were saying was so true. And it forced me to reflect on my six years in the seminary when I was being trained to be a priest. We started using words there, which was the beginning of the, shall we say, clericalism. The root of the problem is sexism, it’s discrimination. We were really brainwashed from an early age not to question the Church’s teachings.”
“In the seminary we learned that we were the consecrated ones. We, the men, were the ones called by God with a special task. We were called to be priests. And what we were doing, women couldn’t do. In subtle ways we were seduced by thinking we were very special, chosen by God. Looking back what I realized is that we were getting a taste of power. We were experiencing that pedestal thing. We became the focus, and somehow our profession is different from others. And how people start treating us differently, even our friends and family, that’s when it really sets in. The addiction to power.”
As women told Roy their stories, he began to think about his childhood. He remembered how racism was reinforced through religious experiences from an early age. Roy grew up in Luchter, Louisiana during segregation. He attended a Catholic Church where black parishioners were only allowed to sit in the last five pews of mass.
“And not one person, not one teacher or priest said it was racism. They said ‘this is our tradition.’ We justified our segre
