Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community

Jon: 00:00:12

Welcome to Good News, being brought to you by Listening for Clues.

Lauren: 00:00:18

We are Lauren Welch and Jon Shematek, deacons in the

Lauren: 00:00:22

Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

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We sure are, and today we have a very special guest with us, the

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Reverend Gloria Carpeneto, who is the co pastor and founder of Living

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Water Inclusive Catholic Community.

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She's been doing that since the year 2008, and that is described as

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an open, welcoming, and inclusive, alternative Catholic community.

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Gloria is a Roman Catholic womanpriest, and was ordained in Boston, . She is

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married to Miles Carpeneto for 53 years.

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They have two children, four grandchildren, four great grandchildren,

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and live in Catonsville, Maryland.

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Gloria is also a Labyrinth Facilitator, a Retreat Facilitator, Spiritual

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Director, and she works to help folks on their walk with God.

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Whomever and whatever that is for them.

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Welcome, Gloria.

Jon: 00:01:28

We're glad to have you with us today.

Gloria: 00:01:30

Thank you, Jon.

Gloria: 00:01:31

It's good to be here.

Lauren: 00:01:33

Gloria, it's really good to have you here with us today.

Lauren: 00:01:36

So I'd like to begin with you're a Roman Catholic womanpriest.

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So tell us about.

Lauren: 00:01:43

What that is and when that began, because many of our viewers may not have

Lauren: 00:01:48

heard of Roman Catholic womenpriests.

Gloria: 00:01:52

Well, it's a long story, but I will keep it pointed.

Gloria: 00:01:59

It really goes back to the women's suffrage movement.

Gloria: 00:02:03

I think that women in general were beginning to sense that

Gloria: 00:02:09

they were as called to serve as anyone was called to serve.

Gloria: 00:02:14

And certainly in the Episcopal tradition, you know, that

Gloria: 00:02:16

happened in what, about 1976?

Gloria: 00:02:19

And that just pushed the Roman Catholic womenpriest movement forward.

Gloria: 00:02:25

So, the formation of a group called the Women's Ordination Conference in

Gloria: 00:02:31

1976 moved forward, forward, forward through the decades so that at the The

Gloria: 00:02:38

point in about, I guess it was 2002, there were seven women who found three

Gloria: 00:02:46

Catholic bishops in the Roman Catholic tradition who ordained these seven women.

Gloria: 00:02:54

And what's important to note is that no matter what is said in the Roman Catholic

Gloria: 00:03:02

tradition about these ordinations, they are what is called illicit but valid.

Gloria: 00:03:09

In other words, there is a code, a canon, in the Catholic Church that forbids the

Gloria: 00:03:15

ordination of women, and these seven women and these three bishops said, that

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is in the tradition of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, unjust law,

Gloria: 00:03:27

and unjust laws are meant to be broken.

Gloria: 00:03:31

So, on the Danube River in 2002, these seven women were ordained.

Gloria: 00:03:36

A few years later, several of them were ordained bishops by Roman

Gloria: 00:03:40

Catholic bishops in good standing in the church secretly, of course.

Gloria: 00:03:46

And those Roman Catholic women bishops then began to ordain

Gloria: 00:03:51

Roman Catholic womenpriests.

Gloria: 00:03:53

So now there are about 300 Roman Catholic womenpriests around

Gloria: 00:03:58

the world in the United States, Canada, Central and South America.

Gloria: 00:04:04

South Africa, China, Taiwan Germany, the Philippines.

Gloria: 00:04:12

So, 300 of us now from 2002 when there were just 7.

Gloria: 00:04:18

And so I was ordained in 2008.

Gloria: 00:04:22

And ordinations were carried on, on the water because they are international.

Gloria: 00:04:28

And no one can really say much about those ordinations in international waters.

Gloria: 00:04:34

So we had two in the United States, one in Canada, one in Pittsburgh.

Gloria: 00:04:39

And then in 2007, I like to say that we crawled up out of the water onto the land.

Gloria: 00:04:47

And I was ordained in 2007 in New York as a deacon.

Gloria: 00:04:52

And then in 2008 in Boston as a priest.

Gloria: 00:04:56

So, the 300 of us are in ministry, oh gosh, a number of ministries all

Gloria: 00:05:02

around the world, but have formed communities like Living Water.

Gloria: 00:05:08

So that's kind of our story encapsulated.

Jon: 00:05:12

Yeah, wow, that's a very nice encapsulation, Gloria.

Jon: 00:05:18

Can you tell me in terms of Roman Catholic womenpriests,

Jon: 00:05:21

and womanpriests is one word.

Jon: 00:05:24

What would you say is distinctive about that in terms of, are you, you're

Jon: 00:05:29

still part of the Roman tradition?

Jon: 00:05:34

The unbroken, the apostolic succession?

Gloria: 00:05:35

Apostolic succession, yeah.

Gloria: 00:05:39

Yeah.

Gloria: 00:05:40

Yeah.

Gloria: 00:05:41

We are very careful to say that we never left.

Gloria: 00:05:44

As a matter of fact in Living Waters incorporation papers, we were very careful

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not to incorporate as a church because we didn't want to be another church.

Gloria: 00:05:55

We said, we are Catholic.

Gloria: 00:05:57

Why should we not be Roman Catholic?

Gloria: 00:06:00

So we consider ourselves a prophetic movement within the Roman Catholic

Gloria: 00:06:06

Church speaking truth within.

Gloria: 00:06:10

Our tradition, which we have never given up.

Gloria: 00:06:14

The church, I believe, would say legally, canonically, there

Gloria: 00:06:18

is an excommunication of us.

Gloria: 00:06:21

We have said that we don't honor that.

Gloria: 00:06:25

And so the distinction, I suppose, is that we are women who don't honor our

Gloria: 00:06:30

excommunication and have gone ahead and functioned as Roman Catholic priests.

Jon: 00:06:36

And so you don't really, you have not organized, and this

Jon: 00:06:39

was not your purpose, to organize into alternative parishes as such.

Gloria: 00:06:44

No, no I will say this, because we are a prophetic movement within the

Gloria: 00:06:51

church, we have certainly taken what we've seen within the structure, the

Gloria: 00:06:59

canons, the liturgy of the church, and have tried to make that inclusive.

Gloria: 00:07:05

We've tried to make that welcoming.

Gloria: 00:07:08

I believe Lauren has been to our liturgy sometimes and she would know

Gloria: 00:07:12

that we've rewritten the Roman Rite.

Gloria: 00:07:15

So it's an inclusive language.

Gloria: 00:07:18

It honors other traditions than our own.

Gloria: 00:07:22

So in that sense, we are distinctive.

Gloria: 00:07:26

You know, it's funny.

Gloria: 00:07:27

A couple of years ago, we had a couple of gentlemen who had been

Gloria: 00:07:32

Roman Catholic priests and had had left the priesthood for various

Gloria: 00:07:35

reasons, and they had heard about us.

Gloria: 00:07:38

And they came to talk with us.

Gloria: 00:07:41

So they talked with my co pastor, Andrea Bishop.

Gloria: 00:07:44

Andrea Johnson and I for, I guess, about an hour.

Gloria: 00:07:48

And at the end of that, we invited them to our liturgy.

Gloria: 00:07:52

So they came and they participated, and at the end, as they were

Gloria: 00:07:57

walking out, one of them said to me, that was really recognizable.

Gloria: 00:08:03

As a Catholic Mass.

Gloria: 00:08:06

And I thought, well what did you think we were doing?

Gloria: 00:08:10

We weren't outside dancing in the moonlight or whatever.

Gloria: 00:08:14

We are in the Roman Catholic tradition.

Gloria: 00:08:18

And the fact that he said it was recognizable as a Mass, is I

Gloria: 00:08:22

think what we are trying to do.

Gloria: 00:08:24

We are trying to renew what is there.

Jon: 00:08:29

So it sounds like you are faithful to the tradition and

Jon: 00:08:33

prophetic to this new way of being.

Gloria: 00:08:38

Yeah.

Gloria: 00:08:38

Now, within the Roman Catholic womenpriests, certainly there is a

Gloria: 00:08:42

spectrum, you know, and some of us will be more conservative and some of us will

Gloria: 00:08:48

be less conservative on that spectrum.

Gloria: 00:08:51

But always we will be a prophetic voice within the church.

Lauren: 00:08:56

Gloria.

Lauren: 00:08:58

The Living Water Inclusive Community.

Lauren: 00:09:01

Tell us about how you, how you function as a community.

Gloria: 00:09:08

How we function as a community.

Gloria: 00:09:13

I would say that certainly since the pandemic, we are

Gloria: 00:09:17

primarily a liturgical community.

Gloria: 00:09:20

We've been together since 2008.

Gloria: 00:09:23

We began as actually two communities.

Gloria: 00:09:27

Brought together, my co founder, co pastor Andrea lives in Annapolis and knew several

Gloria: 00:09:34

people there looking for an alternative way of worshipping and being Church.

Gloria: 00:09:42

I lived in Baltimore and was surrounded by people, I had been a pastoral

Gloria: 00:09:47

associate at a Catholic church.

Gloria: 00:09:50

And so, I was surrounded by people who were also looking for an

Gloria: 00:09:54

alternative way of being Catholic.

Gloria: 00:09:57

The operative phrase there is being Catholic.

Gloria: 00:10:00

So, Andrea and I brought those two groups together at a place that we now

Gloria: 00:10:07

laughingly say was equally inconvenient to them both we've continued to meet

Gloria: 00:10:14

in Catonsville, which is where we have our total community masses.

Gloria: 00:10:19

Now we've, we've branched out from that, so that given the priests that we

Gloria: 00:10:24

have and the the people who are in our community now, we are having liturgies in

Gloria: 00:10:30

Annapolis, in Thurmont, in Catonsville, and in the general Northeast Baltimore

Gloria: 00:10:38

area to accommodate a whole community.

Gloria: 00:10:41

We have liturgies in sanctuaries.

Gloria: 00:10:45

We have them in homes.

Gloria: 00:10:47

We have them in, in one place sometimes.

Gloria: 00:10:52

We split out into Annapolis, Baltimore, and Thurmont.

Gloria: 00:10:56

So we're a church whose schedule is difficult to read.

Gloria: 00:11:00

But once you get the hang of it, we're, we're okay.

Gloria: 00:11:04

That community, I find this kind of interesting.

Gloria: 00:11:07

That community living water.

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has seeded nine priestly vocations.

Gloria: 00:11:14

So there have been nine Roman Catholic womenpriests that have

Gloria: 00:11:18

gone through our community.

Gloria: 00:11:20

Some of them are still in the community, in service to the community.

Gloria: 00:11:26

Some have gone off on their own.

Gloria: 00:11:28

So we have a woman who was ordained with us, but now has a dignity

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community in Northern Virginia.

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We have two priests and a candidate And who will be ordained a deacon

Gloria: 00:11:41

soon, who serve a community in Western Maryland in Thurmont.

Gloria: 00:11:45

And the rest of us are split between Annapolis and Catonsville and Baltimore.

Gloria: 00:11:50

So what's really unique about our community is that so many women have

Gloria: 00:11:57

found a way to express their vocation within Living Water, their vocation

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to be ordained Roman Catholic.

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womenpriests, and then have gone on from there to whatever kind

Gloria: 00:12:09

of ministry they're in, which is, by the way, chaplaincy, spiritual

Gloria: 00:12:15

direction, certainly pastoral care that happens in our community, education.

Jon: 00:12:23

So so Gloria, I'm gonna actually steal a question that

Jon: 00:12:26

Lauren almost always asks.

Jon: 00:12:29

I'm thinking about in your Either in your journey to your ordained vocation

Jon: 00:12:36

or in the Living Water community, what along the way has surprised you?

Gloria: 00:12:44

What has surprised me has been my vocation.

Gloria: 00:12:49

I mean, there are Roman Catholic womenpriests who will say, and I

Gloria: 00:12:54

respect this, you know, from the moment I was a child, I was playing

Gloria: 00:12:59

being priest and that was not me.

Gloria: 00:13:02

That was certainly not me.

Gloria: 00:13:04

I certainly have always felt a call to be in service, and that service has

Gloria: 00:13:13

often been in a Catholic institution.

Gloria: 00:13:16

So I mentioned being a pastoral associate at a Roman Catholic parish, two parishes.

Gloria: 00:13:23

in Baltimore.

Gloria: 00:13:25

But I think that being there and feeling that, that sense my whole life

Gloria: 00:13:32

long of being called to some kind of a ministerial service and seeing how that

Gloria: 00:13:39

was absolutely thwarted, not only for me, but for other women who wanted to go

Gloria: 00:13:46

further in ministry within the church.

Gloria: 00:13:50

I left that job and not too long thereafter, I went to the ordination of

Gloria: 00:13:57

six women on the water in Pittsburgh.

Gloria: 00:14:00

And that's when I think it all just came together for me.

Gloria: 00:14:04

You know, I had been doing a lot of labyrinth work.

Gloria: 00:14:08

I had written my dissertation on the emergence of spirituality

Gloria: 00:14:12

in women in their middle years.

Gloria: 00:14:14

I'd been a very spiritually based person.

Gloria: 00:14:17

And I probably would have said I'm spiritual but not religious.

Gloria: 00:14:21

That kind of thing.

Gloria: 00:14:22

And maybe even now I would say that to a degree, but anyway, I just

Gloria: 00:14:26

was not thinking of service in the church and going to that ordination

Gloria: 00:14:32

just it literally opened my eyes.

Gloria: 00:14:35

I knew then and there that that was what I was called to do.

Gloria: 00:14:38

So my, my call was a surprise.

Gloria: 00:14:43

The fear of, of some priests that I knew when I was working.

Gloria: 00:14:52

Their fear of my being ordained and how that might reflect on

Gloria: 00:14:56

them was a bit of a surprise.

Gloria: 00:14:59

I was also very surprised the day of my ordination at the number of women

Gloria: 00:15:07

who came up to me afterwards and said, I've never seen a woman at the altar.

Gloria: 00:15:15

I've never seen anybody who looks like me.

Gloria: 00:15:18

So you begin to hear the same thing that African American

Gloria: 00:15:22

people say, that LGBTQ people say.

Gloria: 00:15:25

You've never seen a face like this in a place that's important to you.

Gloria: 00:15:31

You've never seen it.

Gloria: 00:15:33

So that was, that was actually a bit of a surprise to me.

Gloria: 00:15:37

I guess I hadn't realized.

Gloria: 00:15:40

the larger meaning of, of my answering the call and all of us

Gloria: 00:15:45

for that matter, answering the call.

Gloria: 00:15:47

So

Lauren: 00:15:48

Gloria how has this changed you or affected you being ordained

Lauren: 00:15:54

and, and following this call?

Lauren: 00:15:56

How has it deepened your relationship with God?

Gloria: 00:16:00

You know, the, a real quick smart answer is I don't know that

Gloria: 00:16:06

I ever knew the scriptures before.

Gloria: 00:16:11

But having to preach and having , and I say having in the best sense, I don't

Gloria: 00:16:17

mean that as a burden in any way, shape or form, but I mean being, having that

Gloria: 00:16:22

constant exposure to the scripture at a way different level than I ever had in

Gloria: 00:16:29

the pew, certainly that has changed me.

Gloria: 00:16:32

I think my sense of of Jesus.

Gloria: 00:16:39

The Christ, Christ consciousness, evolution, the sense of us all as one

Gloria: 00:16:48

has evolved in me, and I think that has changed me, or I think I have changed.

Gloria: 00:16:57

I,

Gloria: 00:17:01

I think I have a greater sense now of, I don't know how to put this,

Gloria: 00:17:09

there may be a better way to put it, but I'll stick with this for now.

Gloria: 00:17:14

This kind of love hate thing that I continue to have.

Gloria: 00:17:18

With a church that has been there for me, literally, from, you know,

Gloria: 00:17:26

being baptized at four days old.

Gloria: 00:17:29

So it's literally been there for me, has been a sense of grounding for me.

Gloria: 00:17:35

The church, what it taught about Jesus and God, the love that I

Gloria: 00:17:42

have for that institution, and then the, I don't want to say hate.

Gloria: 00:17:52

But certainly dislike, distrust that I have for the institution that has

Gloria: 00:18:01

grown up around the teachings of Jesus.

Gloria: 00:18:04

That is more prominent in me now.

Gloria: 00:18:10

I feel that more now.

Gloria: 00:18:12

I, and therefore, I mean that was preliminary to saying,

Gloria: 00:18:15

therefore I feel more called to do something about it, you know.

Gloria: 00:18:21

I feel called to do things like this interview.

Gloria: 00:18:25

I feel called to preach.

Gloria: 00:18:27

I feel called to work with women who are considering a vocation to the priesthood.

Gloria: 00:18:34

In, in RCWP, there are different leadership roles that, that are available.

Gloria: 00:18:40

And for six years, I was what was called the Program Coordinator for the East

Gloria: 00:18:46

Coast region, of which I am a part.

Gloria: 00:18:48

And the Program Coordinator is the one who is basically the director of our quote

Gloria: 00:18:55

unquote seminary, our training program.

Gloria: 00:18:58

So, you know, the opportunity to walk with women see how their call

Gloria: 00:19:06

manifests in different ways help.

Gloria: 00:19:10

I think about women who have a call to the priesthood and are at the same time

Gloria: 00:19:19

really stuck in thinking like the church.

Gloria: 00:19:24

And the ability to walk with them as they kind of unpack what they

Gloria: 00:19:29

believe and don't believe, and what matters and what doesn't matter to

Gloria: 00:19:33

them that has changed me tremendously.

Gloria: 00:19:36

It's just given me a much deeper understanding of what the church can be

Gloria: 00:19:43

when it manifests differently than it has manifested for the past 500 years.

Gloria: 00:19:49

You know, Jon asked me about, are we an alternative community?

Gloria: 00:19:53

Well, yeah, we are.

Gloria: 00:19:55

We are an alternative.

Gloria: 00:19:56

But we're not a different community.

Gloria: 00:19:59

We are a different way of looking at church.

Jon: 00:20:04

So, I can see the difference that has come to you and to so many of the women

Jon: 00:20:10

that you've been part of your community and that have been affected by it.

Jon: 00:20:15

There's definitely, there is new news there for folks.

Jon: 00:20:20

Gloria, I'm just imagining what I'm imagining is the number of obstacles

Jon: 00:20:26

you may have faced along the way.

Gloria: 00:20:28

Well, gosh, it's been a long time and I like to think I've

Gloria: 00:20:34

processed all this, but I can still speak factually about obstacles.

Gloria: 00:20:41

I had been very active.

Gloria: 00:20:43

within the, the Archdiocese of Baltimore in terms of retreat work work with

Gloria: 00:20:50

the Labyrinth and the minute I was ordained, that all just stopped.

Gloria: 00:20:56

So, one obstacle was a really sudden loss of income.

Gloria: 00:21:05

I mean, just income.

Gloria: 00:21:07

And so that, that was an obstacle.

Gloria: 00:21:09

I mean, I, I would say probably 60% of my income at the time that

Gloria: 00:21:14

I was ordained was wrapped up in what I was doing with the church.

Gloria: 00:21:19

And it didn't take too, too long.

Gloria: 00:21:23

I mean, it was very quick before I was anathema, to use the church term.

Gloria: 00:21:31

Obstacles, not personal to me, but community obstacles, for instance.

Gloria: 00:21:38

You know, people like to get up and go to church on Sunday morning.

Gloria: 00:21:43

Well, where are we going to find a church on Sunday morning?

Gloria: 00:21:47

There's no, no Roman Catholic church excommunicated.

Gloria: 00:21:55

So we have to wait until there's a church available.

Gloria: 00:21:58

So our whole schedule since 2008 has shifted to the afternoon.

Gloria: 00:22:03

And that's fine.

Gloria: 00:22:04

I mean, folks are used to it now.

Gloria: 00:22:06

It's just fine.

Gloria: 00:22:07

But there is, we have never, ever been able to celebrate a liturgy

Gloria: 00:22:13

in a Roman Catholic church.

Gloria: 00:22:15

And I think for a lot of people, that's that's been painful.

Gloria: 00:22:19

I think of it really as an obstacle, and I have to give a shout out to

Gloria: 00:22:24

the Episcopal Church, because we have met at the Church of the Nativity and

Gloria: 00:22:30

Holy Comforter, and we've met at St.

Gloria: 00:22:33

Luke's in Annapolis, and both churches have been very warm and welcoming, and

Gloria: 00:22:39

also Harriet Chapel, now that I think of it, in Thurmont, is an Episcopal

Gloria: 00:22:43

Church, and they have been very warm and welcoming to So they really helped us with

Gloria: 00:22:50

that obstacle of where to find a church.

Gloria: 00:22:52

And for people who are Roman Catholic and who want some familiarity,

Gloria: 00:22:57

the Episcopal churches have been pretty familiar looking.

Gloria: 00:23:01

So that's been really wonderful.

Gloria: 00:23:02

Thank you.

Gloria: 00:23:05

So, I mean, there were those kinds of obstacles.

Gloria: 00:23:07

There are some, our own Archbishop, I will give him credit for this,

Gloria: 00:23:13

our own Archbishop never put out any kind of a word that I'm aware of.

Gloria: 00:23:19

telling anybody not to talk to us or anything like that.

Gloria: 00:23:23

But individual pastors at Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Gloria: 00:23:28

have told people that our masses are not real, that our ordinations are

Gloria: 00:23:33

not real, that people haven't quote unquote, met their Sunday obligation.

Gloria: 00:23:39

If they are worshiping with us nationwide, there have been leaders in the church

Gloria: 00:23:47

who have at the last minute said that we couldn't be at a church where I was

Gloria: 00:23:53

supposed to be ordained in New York.

Gloria: 00:23:55

At the very last minute, that church was just pulled out from under us.

Gloria: 00:24:01

So, we've lost churches.

Gloria: 00:24:03

Yeah, I mean, there have been bishops who have taken upon themselves the,

Gloria: 00:24:10

the task of excommunicating everybody.

Gloria: 00:24:14

The priests who are presiding.

Gloria: 00:24:16

The people who are in the church some, one person said you get excommunicated

Gloria: 00:24:21

every time you come to one of our masses.

Gloria: 00:24:24

I wasn't aware you could get excommunicated more than once.

Gloria: 00:24:31

So, you know, those kind of obstacles, on the one hand they're laughable.

Gloria: 00:24:36

On the other hand, they make it difficult to see a way forward in terms of this

Gloria: 00:24:44

prophetic voice that we want to have.

Gloria: 00:24:46

It's not to say that every priest, every bishop, every parish is like

Gloria: 00:24:51

that, but they're out there and they have been obstacles, certainly.

Gloria: 00:24:56

And I think there are folks who are, are really ingrained in the Roman tradition.

Gloria: 00:25:03

And so I have presided at weddings where I find out two weeks

Gloria: 00:25:08

later, a Catholic priest did the real wedding, quote unquote.

Gloria: 00:25:14

Or, I have baptized a child, only to find out that when she's ready

Gloria: 00:25:19

to go to Catholic school five years later, they do a real baptism.

Gloria: 00:25:23

So I think those kinds of things are, you know, Jon, you use the word obstacle.

Gloria: 00:25:29

They are obstacles that I think we overcome.

Gloria: 00:25:34

They are perhaps more hurtful than obstacles.

Gloria: 00:25:38

To think that our voices are, I like to think, prophetic voices for

Gloria: 00:25:46

equality and diversity and inclusion.

Gloria: 00:25:49

And that's kind of the response that sometimes we get, you know,

Gloria: 00:25:53

that, I think that's hurtful.

Jon: 00:25:56

Yeah.

Jon: 00:25:57

So, so Gloria, I think the thing that this is making me wonder

Jon: 00:26:01

about too, and I, I just, I know you're a woman of great faith.

Jon: 00:26:07

And as such, as a faithful Christian, as a faithful Catholic there's always

Jon: 00:26:12

this element of hope, and I'm wondering what hope you have for Living Water

Jon: 00:26:20

for Roman Catholic womenpriests.

Gloria: 00:26:25

Oh my gosh, it's so funny that you should ask that

Gloria: 00:26:28

question, because I just read an

Gloria: 00:26:37

Huge.

Gloria: 00:26:38

If, if you're familiar with any of the boroughs of New York, they were huge in

Gloria: 00:26:43

terms of the work that they did and are doing with hospitals shelters, homes

Gloria: 00:26:50

for children, work with immigrants.

Gloria: 00:26:54

The women have been around forever just doing wonderful work, and they just had

Gloria: 00:26:59

a, one of their councils, and at the council they voted, first of all, all

Gloria: 00:27:05

of the sisters voted unanimously, they voted to stop accepting applicants,

Gloria: 00:27:12

and they voted to see their work as they worded it to completion.

Gloria: 00:27:20

So their notion of hope is living to the end of what they began.

Gloria: 00:27:28

Knowing that beyond that, there's something else, you know, their hope

Gloria: 00:27:34

is in the seeds that they planted.

Gloria: 00:27:36

I think that's the gospel for us this weekend, isn't it?

Gloria: 00:27:39

The sower and the seeds their hope is in the seeds that they planted and allowing

Gloria: 00:27:45

someone else to take over after that.

Gloria: 00:27:48

So I think for Living Water, it's the same sense.

Gloria: 00:27:50

I happen to be writing right now, our spiritual autobiography.

Gloria: 00:27:56

And I, I actually finished it, or I thought I did in 2019.

Gloria: 00:28:03

I was writing about all the wonderful things that had happened to form

Gloria: 00:28:07

our community through 2019, and then bam, along comes the pandemic.

Gloria: 00:28:12

And so there's Zoom, and so we're not meeting in person anymore, and so a lot of

Gloria: 00:28:16

our outreach ministries have just stopped.

Gloria: 00:28:20

So, now there's a chapter.

Gloria: 00:28:23

of our autobiography that goes from 2020 to 2023.

Gloria: 00:28:29

And basically is saying, we think we are still doing good work.

Gloria: 00:28:35

We think we are going to be forever.

Gloria: 00:28:39

But like those sisters, if it happens that we are not, well, we will have been

Gloria: 00:28:46

a step in the evolution of whatever God's eye sees as the next point of evolution.

Gloria: 00:28:58

I don't know if I answered your question.

Jon: 00:28:59

Oh, yeah, you absolutely.

Jon: 00:29:01

That's such a clear answer, Gloria.

Jon: 00:29:03

And it's it's one I was looking forward to hearing because I, I really thought there

Jon: 00:29:08

is a message of hope in what you're doing.

Jon: 00:29:10

And sometimes prophecy is so difficult but I don't think you can

Jon: 00:29:16

be prophetic without hoping that being prophetic will lead to change.

Jon: 00:29:20

So, so Gloria, that kind of, I'd like to just know from you, let's

Jon: 00:29:24

say some of our viewers or listeners are interested in learning more about

Jon: 00:29:30

Roman Catholic womenpriests or the Living Water Inclusive Community.

Jon: 00:29:35

Are there ways that you can be reached?

Jon: 00:29:37

Do you have a website?

Gloria: 00:29:40

Well, certainly Roman Catholic womenpriests has a website it's very

Gloria: 00:29:44

comprehensive in terms of RCWP's history, all of our regions around the world.

Gloria: 00:29:51

All of the priests are listed.

Gloria: 00:29:53

You know, you could go on vacation just about anywhere in the

Gloria: 00:29:57

United States and find a liturgy if you were looking for one.

Gloria: 00:30:01

So I think that the RCWP, Roman Catholic womenpriests website, is one resource.

Gloria: 00:30:07

Closer to home, the Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community has a website and on

Gloria: 00:30:14

the website there are email addresses so that people can contact us and be on a

Gloria: 00:30:21

mailing list and we send a mailing out every single week just to let people

Gloria: 00:30:26

know where we are because, as I said, we're all over the map in Maryland.

Gloria: 00:30:30

So anyway, so they can contact us that way.

Gloria: 00:30:33

There are phone numbers we have a presence on Facebook, which to be real

Gloria: 00:30:38

honest, I need to update, but there is a presence on Facebook that now that

Gloria: 00:30:42

I've been on the show, I will update.

Jon: 00:30:45

Oh, that's great, Gloria.

Jon: 00:30:47

I appreciate it.

Jon: 00:30:47

And those will definitely be in the show notes for anyone who wants

Jon: 00:30:50

to find out more or make contact.

Jon: 00:30:54

That's just super.

Gloria: 00:30:56

You know, I should mention too that our priests are in, right

Gloria: 00:31:02

now, they're in Eldersburg, Annapolis.

Gloria: 00:31:08

Catonsville, Easton they're all over the map in Maryland and

Gloria: 00:31:15

our telephone numbers and email addresses are on the RCWP website.

Gloria: 00:31:21

So people can contact whomever they want.

Gloria: 00:31:24

Great.

Jon: 00:31:25

That's, that's great.

Jon: 00:31:26

This sort of reminds me of the early church where you had to kind

Jon: 00:31:28

of find where's this, where's the meeting going to happen, where is

Jon: 00:31:31

Eucharist going to be this week, look for a wall and there they are.

Jon: 00:31:36

So that's pretty cool.

Jon: 00:31:37

Thanks so much, Gloria.

Lauren: 00:31:41

Gloria, before we go, is there anything else you

Lauren: 00:31:44

would like to share with us?

Lauren: 00:31:45

Any, anything about your, your journey or Living Water or any words

Lauren: 00:31:51

of wisdom you want to leave us with?

Gloria: 00:31:54

I was okay with that question until you asked for words of

Gloria: 00:32:02

wisdom.

Gloria: 00:32:03

I want to go back to this, this question of hope.

Gloria: 00:32:07

I hope that RCWP and Living Water are a sign of hope.

Gloria: 00:32:14

to folks who may be ready to hang up their relationship with a church,

Gloria: 00:32:22

because sometimes that means you hang up your relationship with God.

Gloria: 00:32:26

Stop going to church.

Gloria: 00:32:27

I mean, the church is, at its best, it's a faith community.

Gloria: 00:32:33

You know, it's a faith community.

Gloria: 00:32:35

So I just, I like that idea of being hope filled.

Gloria: 00:32:43

Within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, I'm sure everybody is aware now,

Gloria: 00:32:48

the report came out recently on sexual abuse by priests.

Gloria: 00:32:54

And in the newspapers, on social media, you could see it everywhere that people

Gloria: 00:33:02

were saying, I will never set foot inside of a Catholic Church again.

Gloria: 00:33:09

Well, who do you think has been coming?

Gloria: 00:33:14

Who do you think has been coming to our kind of sister

Gloria: 00:33:18

communities in Northern Virginia?

Gloria: 00:33:20

People who want to be hopeful for the church.

Gloria: 00:33:28

People who want to be hope filled.

Gloria: 00:33:30

So, I think that, that would be my kind of parting words that I, I hope that we are a

Gloria: 00:33:37

sign of hope and that people feel welcome.

Gloria: 00:33:43

included and really wanted in this community of faith.

Jon: 00:33:51

Gloria, that is good news.

Jon: 00:33:53

That is great news.

Jon: 00:33:54

And we thank you so much for being here with us today.

Gloria: 00:33:58

Thank you.

Gloria: 00:33:58

Thank you.

Gloria: 00:34:00

It was my pleasure.

Lauren: 00:34:02

Jon and I want to also thank those who are watching

Lauren: 00:34:06

and listening with us today.

Lauren: 00:34:08

We cannot do this without your participation.

Lauren: 00:34:12

So please take a moment and comment, like, and share On all

Lauren: 00:34:17

your social media platforms.

Lauren: 00:34:21

This will help us to share the good news with even more people.

Lauren: 00:34:25

And again, Thank you for the gift of your time with us today.

Lauren: 00:34:30

Until next time, peace and blessings.

Jon: 00:34:36

Good news is being brought to you by Listening for Clues.

Jon: 00:34:39

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Jon: 00:34:42

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Jon: 00:34:47

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