The path to priesthood . . .
“The Philadelphia Eleven”

 
An important date in the history of the Episcopal Church: on July 29, 1974 (thirty-two years ago), eleven women were ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in Philadelphia:  Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Jacqueline Means, Marie Moorefield Fleisher, Jeannette Piccard, Betty Bone Schiess, Katrina Martha Swanson, and Nancy Hatch Wittig.

This ordination, performed by bishops who had retired or resigned, was denounced as “irregular” and these women became known as the “Philadelphia Eleven.”

Shortly thereafter, four additional women were also “irregularly" ordained: Eleanor Lee McGee, Alison Palmer, Betty Powell, and Diane Tickell. A firestorm of controversy erupted in the church:  charges were filed against these dissident bishops (Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, Edward Welles and George Barrett) and an emergency meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops was convened on August 15, 1974. The stained glass ceiling had been lifted; however, and on September 16, 1976 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (meeting in Minneapolis) adopted a resolution to change the church’s canon law to allow the ordination of women for all three orders of ministry (bishop, priest, deacon).

The decision to ordain women remains optional in each diocese, however. Today three dioceses in the United States continue to refuse to ordain or recognize the priesthood of women (Fort Worth, Texas, Quincy, Illinois, and San Joaquin, California).