The act was brazen and according to the canons of the Episcopal Church, illegal. On July 29, 1974, eleven women gathered at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia and were ordained to the priesthood.
Or were they? At the General Convention in 1970, women were seated in the House of Deputies for the first time. Three years later, the convention debated allowing women’s ordination to the priesthood.
“Grace is channeled through men,” one of the priests thundered. The gathering refused to authorize the ordination of women.
Nevertheless, to paraphrase Mitch McConnell, they persisted.
“The Philadelphia Eleven,” a remarkable documentary scheduled for release later this month, tells the backstory of the ordinations as well as the repercussions as Episcopalians gradually came to terms with gender equality in the priesthood. Produced and lovingly directed by Margo Guernsey, the documentary opens with a reunion of several of the ordinands on a horse farm, all of whom speak movingly about their calls to the priesthood.
“It was a remarkable time to grow up,” one said. “The world was changing, and this country was changing.”
These women clearly were emboldened by the civil rights movement, but second-wave feminism also played a role in shaping their aspirations. Words like justice, kindness, compassion and mercy punctuate these recollections.
“You need to speak the truth even if your voice shakes,” one woman declared. “And that’s what I did.”
Viewers likely will be surprised at the meticulous planning that preceded the ordinations. Strategists decided that more than one woman should be ordained and that more than one bishop should preside.
Inquiries were sent to 14 female deacons; eleven agreed to be ordained. “We were not the same by any means,” one recalled. “Conservative and liberal and progressive and radical and right on the edge.”
Church of the Advocate was chosen as the venue because of the prophetic voice of Paul Washington, the African American rector. Pauli Murray, another African American who aspired to the priesthood, demurred, urging the women to work through the system.
“Don’t leave the church,” she counseled. “Let the church put you out.”
As word of the impending ceremony leaked to the press, participants faced threats of violence. Police were mobilized outside the church.
However, the ordinations proceeded in joyful celebration. Barbara Harris, who would later be the first woman elected bishop, served as crucifer.
Reactions were swift and decisive. Episcopal bishops were summoned to an emergency meeting at O’Hare Airport.
Unsurprisingly, they declared the ordinations invalid. Many women were also opposed. “It is simply a role that a woman cannot fill,” one said.
“I’d be delighted if they go away,” a man, who referred to the “priestesses” as “eleven little Indians,” said.
The first public Eucharist with women as celebrants took place not at an Episcopal church but at Riverside Church on October 27, 1974. The road to acceptance was long and tortuous. Rectors who invited women to celebrate imperiled their own careers, as when the head of a standing committee informed Peter Beebe, “Your career is over.”
Beebe, however, named the hypocrisy, especially to the bishop who had marched with Martin Luther King in Selma. “How dare you preach to this country,” Beebe said, “the way you did and not to your own institution?”
Producers of “The Philadelphia Eleven” allow the narrative to unfold leisurely and organically, juxtaposing contemporary recollections with archival footage. The documentary is skillfully edited, at times celebratory and at others poignant.
Even the vote at the 1976 General Convention to validate women’s ordination did not end the backlash. One of the most riveting clips was from William F. Buckley’s Firing Line television program.
Buckley, usually intelligent and articulate, could also be smarmy. The clip captures the latter as he set up his guests, a layman and a bishop, both of whom opposed women’s ordination. “The notion that the ordination of women should be supremely offensive requires a little explanation,” Buckley began, punching the words “supremely” and “offensive.”
“It seems as if we’ve lost our moorings, we’ve lost our standards,” the unidentified lay guest responded. “We have no sense of authority anymore.”
The bishop replied that the issue was both theological and moral. “It’s not just the ordination of women; it’s the entire breakdown of any moral standards within the life of the church.” Neither guest was asked to explain how moral standards were compromised by the ordination of women.
The ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven half a century ago certainly changed the Episcopal Church. Many congregations left the denomination and the historian in me hastens to point out that this may be only the second major instance in American religious history when a religious group chose effectively to diminish its numbers in obedience to the mandates of the gospel. The other was the 18th-century reformation of Quakerism in Pennsylvania to reclaim its pacifism.
The kerfuffle over women’s ordination prepared the Episcopal Church to weather the storms surrounding the ordination of gays and the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. In the Episcopal Church today, as the documentary points out, 30 percent of all bishops are women and 40 percent of all priests are women.
It’s hardly radical to note that institutions are human contrivances and therefore flawed. But institutions also tend to endure, and there is little doubt in my mind that the Episcopal Church is better for having welcomed women into the priesthood.
Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics, among others, should take notice.
An Episcopal priest, Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College and the author of more than a dozen books, with commentaries appearing in newspapers across the country. He is a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
