2003: Rising with Courage: Patricia Fresen

Patricia Fresen was consecrated a bishop in 2005 in apostolic succession. She spent two decades building formation programs and ordaining women across the Americas and South Africa as an act of prophetic obedience.

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After the ordinations of the Danube Seven, one of the first places the Spirit moved was to a convent in South Africa. Patricia Fresen served the Roman Catholic Church as a Dominican sister for forty-five years, teaching students of all ages, and living the vowed life she loved. When the call to priesthood came, she was ready, and she understood what it might cost. Long before Rome ever heard her name, she had already practiced breaking an unjust law. In 1972, as the principal of a Catholic school under apartheid, she opened her classroom doors to children of every race, in defiance of the law of her own country. She would later say that the lesson never left her: that sometimes the only way to change an unjust law is to break it.

Her theological formation ran deep. She studied in Rome, earned her doctorate, and taught at the National Seminary in Pretoria and later at St. Augustine’s College in Johannesburg. This made her one of the few Catholic women of her era to teach seminarians preparing for the same priesthood forbidden to her. In 2003, she met two of the Danube Seven. Hearing in that invitation the deep and true voice of the Holy Spirit calling her forward, Patricia said, “yes.” That August, in Barcelona, Bishops Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger and Gisele Forster ordained her as a deacon, then two days later as a priest.

For the penalty of breaking canon law 1024, the Vatican stripped Patricia of the community she loved. To prevent harm to her Dominican community, she was asked to seek dispensation from her vows and leave them.

For Patricia Fresen, the cost of ordination was great. The calling from God was greater.

In 2005, Roman Catholic Bishop X (identity protected) ordained and consecrated Patricia as a bishop, in unbroken apostolic succession. From there, she began developing training programs to support and ordain other Roman Catholic women called to priesthood in the English-speaking world. For the next two decades, she saw to the preparation and ordination of women in the Americas and South Africa, becoming a beloved mother in whose lineage we proudly stand.

Patricia considered her ordination an act of prophetic obedience: listening carefully to the Holy Spirit and following where she leads, whatever the law says. She encouraged us to do the same.

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Learn more about our beloved spiritual foundress, “Trish,” in this beautiful tribute written by South African priest Dianne Willman.