August 24, 2009
By Alda Marsh Morgan

It is interesting to me, as a theologically educated lay woman and a former lay woman church worker, that the observations of the 35th anniversary of women's ordination (see Episcopal Life Online story at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81840_112947_ENG_HTM.htm) are positive. There was nothing from the critics of the action and, while there was acknowledgement that much remained to be done, nothing to suggest that not all the consequences of 1974 and 1976 were positive.

There were few of my church worker colleagues who wished to be ordained, once it became possible, not because they didn't approve of women priests, but because we felt secure in our own vocation as theologically educated lay professionals. What we found offensive was the complete lack of respect for our own work and vocation on the part of the women who sought ordination and were committed to their own vocations as ordained ministers. Moreover, once ordination became available for women, most of us were no longer able to work in the church. The church's clericalism saw to that.

Many of us felt pushed aside, unappreciated, and – to bring it all home – we had to scramble to find jobs in other sectors or had to fight to find paid work in the church and other ways to continue to express our own vocational calls in ministry. More than a few left the church altogether and even more were embittered or close to despair.

Years after all these events, I learned about a woman who had graduated from my training school (St. Margaret's House, Berkeley, California) a number of years before me, and I invited her to speak at a seminary class on the history of women in the church. She refused at first, saying that that whole chapter in her life was so painful, she didn't want to re-open it. She added, "No one would be interested anyway and I couldn't bear to go through that again." I prevailed, however, and she was warmly received in what I hope was a healing experience for her.

It took me many, many years to accept the fact that I would never again be able to be a full-time campus minister, which had been my vocation. I applied for positions for which I was eminently qualified, but was turned down flat because I wasn't ordained. I did eventually find other work in theological education and I'm grateful for that, but for years it felt like second-best, a stopgap. Now, of course, I realize that I was – unlike many of my earlier colleagues – fortunate to have found this work and I am deeply committed to it. I finally accepted the fact, but there were years of bitterness and feelings of uselessness.

It is still hard to accept the fact that years of devoted service could simply be consigned to a black hole. All of us were used to the fact that most church people, even then, weren't aware of our existence or had only a modicum of respect for us if they did know of it. Many – especially among the clergy – thought we were amusing and made jokes about us. Our salaries were laughable and our pensions a patchwork of various programs. All the same prejudices that have limited and infuriated women clergy were ours, as well. But, as long as we could do our work this was, in part, bearable, and we worked hard to implement the canonical recognition and commissioning which we got in 1964, for all the good it did us.

Although I had some principled reasons for opposing the Philadelphia action, some of my feeling is unquestionably sour grapes. I had no difficulty whatever welcoming women clergy once we began to ordain women and, as the saying goes, "some of my best friends are women clergy." I've worked with many women seminarians and labored to support them personally, as well as programmatically. But there were unfortunate, even destructive, consequences, too, both of the Philadelphia ordinations (and other "illegal" ordinations) and of the advent of women clergy. Not all the changes in the church that could be at least partially traced to the ordination of women have been positive – ironically, first, to other women ministers.

Episcopal News Service
Alda Marsh Morgan lives in Berkeley, California.