October 6, 2011

Reverend Roy Bourgeois, M.M. School of the Americas Watch PO Box 3330 Columbus, GA 31903

Dear Roy, We, the undersigned, many of whom have served overseas as men and women of Maryknoll, send you our warmest greetings of love, support and solidarity. Pace e bene! It is with sadness and regret that we have witnessed the unfolding drama of your relationship with the Vatican and the Maryknoll General Council. How tragic that the Council possesses neither the courage, nor the wisdom, nor the requisite diplomacy to affirm you and your prophetic ministry with respect to the ordination of women without resorting, albeit under pressure from Rome, to the process of laicization and dismissal from Maryknoll. How unfortunate, too, that you are accused of giving scandal to “the people of God” and the Church. And how ironic, when indeed it is the Vatican and the General Council who are causing the scandal across America and the world by punishing you in a manner that underscores the Vatican’s long- standing negative attitude toward women. Indeed, Roy, we see you as a peacemaker who hungers and thirsts for justice. You protest the sins of sexism, patriarchy and misogyny in the Church, even as you have protested the training here in the United States of repressive and murderous Latin American military, and spent time in prison for so doing. We see your conscience as alive and well, active and clear, and guided by the Spirit. You have nothing to recant. Let Holy Mother Church recant, as it did in the case of Galileo, as it did in the case of Joan of Arc and as it did in the case of Limbo, which brought untold suffering to mothers, fathers and families for centuries. As time will eventually show, the Vatican and the Maryknoll General Council are on the wrong side of history. This, too, is tragic. Sooner or later, the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity will be moved by the Spirit to ordain women, married and celibate, as well as married men. In so doing, it must also abolish the power distinction between clergy and laity that has undermined a unified Body of Christ since before the Middle Ages. In the final analysis, to paraphrase Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Christianity will change or die.” And so, dear brother, we bless you and thank you, and we celebrate your ministry. In turn, we ask your blessing on all of us. Pax tecum!

[Names and addresses of signers follow below.]