Women priests

This month, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) celebrates a Decade of the Women Clergy (October 1997-October 2007). During these past ten years, it has ordained 630 women to the priesthood, whose functions are virtually the same as those of its male clergy. 

 One of the activities for the decade celebration was the launching of a small booklet, titled Celebrating the Gift of the Woman Priesthood. Rev. Vicky Esguerra, priest and project director, writes in the foreword that the publication documents the plight of the women clergy “from the biblico-theological interpretation and hierarchical mandates to downright emotional overtones experienced by the women priests themselves.”

 The book is a must reading, writes Reverend Esguerra. “Where the Church preaches liberation from human bondage of sin and social injustice, the IFI women priests have emerged triumphantly from their silent struggles, asserting their complementary roles with their male counterparts, through the unifying grace of the Holy Spirit.”

The Most Rev. Godofredo J. David, Obispo Maximo XI of IFI, writes of the women priests’ prevailing “over the unwelcoming attitude that greeted them a decade ago and how their ministry has enriched the IFI, making the Church more responsive with the ever-growing challenge of doing mission.”

 Women’s ordination was approved by the church’s Supreme Council of Bishops on Oct. 1, 1996. The first to be officially ordained in February 1997,  was the Rev. Rosalina V. Rabaria, She was first assigned to the IFI church in Maayon, Capiz, as a deacon. As related by Jocelyn D. Villasor, the church in Maayon had “fallen asleep” for 20 years, and was reactivated by Deacon Rabaria. The woman priest had “a big heart, elastic patience, (was) energetic, spiritually intelligent, and most of all in her humility was able to handle her ministry.”

Parishioners were skeptical when female priests were assigned to their dioceses. Rev. Lucy Dagandan was sent to the Parish of the Holy Child in Pines, Oroquieta City. But she was able to win the hearts of her parishioners, writes Maria Lucinita T. Antawil, a member of the church, with her compassionate nature. She helped take care of the parish finances, organize barangay chapels, improve and repair the parsonage, build a native-inspired multi-purpose hall, monitor church attendance, and revive novenas and prayer meetings.

Rev. Rhea Bitacura-Loquias, ordained in 2004, moved parishioners first skeptical about having a woman priest in the Diocese of Surigao, to become more prayerful and loving.

Rev. Vicky Esguerra writes that societal viewpoints on the issue of women’s ordination has, over two millennia of discord, varied “from silent indifference to eloquent outrage.” The issue had IFI bishops and lay members split hairs over why women should not be ordained. Passages in the Scriptures were used to oppose — if not to espouse — women deacons the right to  become priests. Many IFI women members thought — and some still do — that women’s place is the home — and not behind the pulpit. The national women’s organization president, Marita Medina, writes that the church women leaders “have to do their share in educating the women to fully support the ordained ministers — female and male alike.”

Two male priests — the Very Rev. Eleuterio Revollido, CoP, and the Rev. Thaddeaus Barrameda, NPO — write about the issue in the booklet. Women Aglipayanos fought with IFI Founder Gregorio Aglipay in the battlefront during the war against the American colonizers in Ilocos Norte, in 1900, and when Aglipay accepted the leadership of  the newly-proclaimed IFI in 1902, it was the women of Pandacan, Manila, who led the occupation of the parish church, and, almost on the same ground, a nationalist woman named Saturnina Bunda, led the faithful of the town of Malabon, Rizal, to take over the church building. Write the two priests: “These exploits of women in the early history of the IFI were the solid bases that proved the capability of women even in the bloody war of liberation or in a nonviolent act of emancipation.” But why is it so hard for them to be accepted as servants behind the altar, they ask?

The IFI started discussing the role of women in the ordained ministry with the encouragement of her Concordat partner, the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA). ECUSA’s presiding bishop, John Allin, asked the  IFI Supreme Council of Bishops to study the matter. Fresh winds came with the acceptance of the first woman seminarian at St. Andrew’s Theological Seminary (SATS) in Quezon City in 1972, after which women seminarians were ordained to be deaconesses. In 1997, the first woman to be ordained was the Rev. Rosalina Rabaria of Aklan.

Ironically, women’s ordination split the ECUSA, giving rise to a separatist Episcopal Synod of America (ESA). This group, according to Revolido and Barrameda, emphasized the conservative theological idea that, “If we change the masculine imagery by which God has eternally revealed Himself to us by having a woman behind the altar, then we will feel compelled to reject the language of Lord, Father and Bridegroom. And then, we will no longer have Christianity, but a return to ancient paganism. It is certainly not just a matter of ‘women’s rights,’ but the stepping-stone to a new man-made (woman-made) religion.”

Not true, not true, write the two male priests: “Truly the decade celebration of the gift of the woman priesthood in the IFI should be seen in the complementary roles of the IFI women’s true commitment to the ministry that Christ has been giving . . . The obstacles are still formidable for the IFI women clergy but with more and more male clergy embracing them as co-equal partners in one ministry in  Christ, it is a sign of maturity in the IFI.”

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