2005-2006: Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA (RCWP-USA) is Born

The Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement expanded across North America with a historic wave of ordinations in 2005 and 2006, presided over by Bishops Patricia Fresen, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Gisela Forster, and Ida Raming. In 2005, Victoria Rue and Philip Faker incorporated RCWP-USA as a non-profit organization. Together, these courageous and prophetic actions birthed the movement we continue to nurture today.

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Three years after the ordination of the Danube 7, and one year after Jane Via and Victoria Rue were ordained deacons on the Danube, the movement crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Victoria Rue and Jane’s husband, Philip Faker, stayed in touch after their deacon ordinations on the Danube and, in 2005, founded the non-profit organization Roman Catholic Womanpriests-USA.  

On March 10, 2005, Bishop Patricia Fresen traveled to Boston, where she presided as bishop for the very first time and ordained Marie David and Jean Marie (St. Onge) Marchant to the diaconate. This was the first ordination of Roman Catholic women deacons in North America and the United States.

Soon after, on July 25, 2005, nine North American women received Holy Orders on a boat circling the international waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway between the United States and Canada. On that day, bishops Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Gisela Forster, and Patricia Fresen laid hands on four women for the priesthood: Michele Birch-Conery, Marie David, Jean Marie (St. Onge) Marchant, and Victoria Rue. Five more were ordained to the diaconate: Roberta Meehan (as Rebecca McGuyver), Regina Nicolosi, Sibyl Dana Reynolds, Kathleen (Strack) Kunster, and Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg.

Jane Via waited another year for priestly ordination in order to study homiletics and pastoral theology. In June 2006, Bishops Ida Raming, Gisela Forster, and Patricia Fresen ordained her to the priesthood on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) along with Regina Nicolosi and Monika Wyss. On the same day, they ordained Andrea Johnson a deacon.

The next and perhaps best-known ordination took place at the convergence of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 31, 2006. With more than 400+ people present on the main deck of the Majestic, bishops Ida Raming, Gisela Forster, and Patricia Fresen ordained four deacons (Cheryl Bristol, Juanita Cordero, Mary Ellen Robertson, and Janice Sevre-Dusynskya), and eight priests (Eileen McCafferty DiFranco, Merlene Olivia Doko, Joan Clark Houk, Kathleen Strack Kunster, Bridget Mary Meehand, Roberta Meehan, Sibyl Dana Reynolds, and Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg). 

From Boston and the St. Lawrence Seaway to the converging rivers in Pittsburgh, the movement in the Americas took root, becoming RCWP-Canada to the north and RCWP-USA in the United States, alongside women who organized independently late in 2010 as the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Different organizations, one shared beginning: faithful Catholic women, an extraordinary “yes,” and a lineage of hands passed down through the legacy of St. Peter through the Danube Seven, Patricia Fresen, and the St. Lawrence Nine, to ministries across kitchen tables, hospital chapels, independent parishes, and living rooms across this country.