This Sunday we will host our diocesan observance for the 50th Anniversary of the ordination of the first women priests in the Episcopal Church at 4 pm at Trinity Cathedral.
Our preacher at Evensong will be the Rev. Machrina Blasdell, who was one of the first women to go through the ordination process in the Diocese of Arizona. I will let her share her own story—but I will tell the punchline that although she went through the ordination process here, she was not actually ordained in Arizona or by a bishop of Arizona.
Such were the fits and starts by which women came to be ordained and serve as priests in our church.
When I met my first Episcopal priest who was a woman in 1987, I had no idea or appreciation for all that she was enduring. I am so grateful to all of them—Machrina among them—for breaking down barriers in dioceses and congregations, and making it possible for women of my generation to thrive.
There is more work to be done for full equality and justice—but I just checked the 2023 Clergy Compensation report from the Church Pension Group and the median salary of female and male clergy in our diocese now only has a $2000 gap—when in 2022 it was $10,000. I haven’t dug into all the data myself, but that sounds right, as we seek to call and compensate all our clergy fairly.
If you have not yet seen the film, The Philadelphia Eleven, it is going to be available on demand this weekend for $11. You can connect to the streaming service here.
And I hope to see many of you on Sunday. Let us celebrate and remember our spiritual mothers who heard the call; and the male bishops and priests who sought to serve God faithfully, even when it meant breaking the canons; and the deputies and bishops who finally changed those canons.
If you are a woman clergy, you are invited to vest and process at this service. Please fill out the Clergy RSVP form below if you can attend and would like to process.
