If you have not heard of Nancy Ledins, who passed away in July at age 84, her story is very much worth reading if you are concerned with Catholic LGBT issues.
Nancy Ledins leading worshipLedins, then presenting as a man, was an ordained Roman Catholic priest for ten years. A member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, she left the priesthood in 1969 to get married to a former woman religious. Eventually the couple divorced around the time that Ledins transitioned in 1979.
In news accounts and profiles of Ledins after her transition, the perennial question of whether she was still a Catholic priest arose. Reporter John Dart of the Los Angeles Times explored this question in 1980. He wrote at the time, as reported by the Charlotte Observer this year:
“‘[Ledins] might be the first woman priest in Roman Catholic history in a technical sense. . .since she never sought to be returned officially to lay status, has never been summarily notified of such by the church and, by the usual understanding of church law, is still a priest – though not a legally functioning one.’”
The National Catholic Reporter’s (NCR) coverage agreed with this assessment, saying the first woman priest came about not through a bishop but through a surgeon. Incidentally, Ledins’ had her gender-confirming surgery on Holy Thursday when the church celebrates the institution of the priesthood.
Church officials never formally responded to Ledin’s situation, and Ledins has never challenged that silence. She told NCR that though technically ordained, “there is probably a canon somewhere that spells my demise as a priest” if she tried to celebrate the sacraments. Still, on the 55th anniversary of her ordination, Ledins prayed:
“‘Lord Father, my special thanks for the gift of ordination and ministry over the years. . .And thank you for letting me be here. Amen and amen. Alleluia.’”
How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology
Source: Transgender Woman’s Ministry Continued Long After She Left Priesthood – Bondings 2.0
How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology
Gender complementarity has since Pope John Paul II dominated official Roman Catholic discussions about gender and sexuality. It has become the all-purpose explanation for why the church cannot change its teachings or practices in these areas. Men and women, we are told, have essential and changeless natures that are permanently different and that prescribe not interchangeable roles. Gender complementarity encounters skepticism in major Catholic publications, such as America, Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter, as well as more broadly among Roman Catholic theologians and ethicists. The fundamental intellectual problem with gender complementarity is that it rests on a circular argument. Gender complementarity is allegedly a fact of nature and therefore the self-evident basis of what the hierarchy has to teach about the “natural” institutions of marriage and family. The church, so the argument goes, is simply following natural law (the moral rules inscribed by nature on human society). Despite the supposed factuality of gender complementarity, it would seem that it can only be authentically recognized in the forms of marriage and family that the church prescribes. In short, gender complementarity supposes a natural law framework of which at the same time it is the foundation. This is an intellectual house of cards that collapses as soon as one asks what evidence, external to the teaching of the church, we have that such facts actually exist in nature! Natural law proclaims that self-evident facts of nature can be recognized not only by faithful Catholics but by all human beings. When scientific evidence cannot confirm these facts and when so much of ordinary human experience contradicts them, natural law appears to be more an artifice of authority than a narrative of objective reality.
“The Nashville Statement,” drafted by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, issues a series of affirmations and denials about sexuality. These include rejecting marriage equality and denying that “adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.”
