John Wijngaards | |
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Born | Johannes Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards 30 September 1935 |
Nationality | Dutch |
Johannes Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards (born 1935, in Surabaya, Indonesia) is a Catholic scripture scholar and a laicized priest.
Since 1977 he has been prominent in his public opposition to the teaching of the Catholic Church on the impossibility of ordaining women to the priesthood. In 1998 he resigned from his priestly ministry in protest against Pope John Paul II’s decrees Ordinatio sacerdotalis and Ad Tuendam Fidem which prohibited further discussion of the women priests’ issue in the Catholic Church.
Wijngaards was born on 30 September 1935 from Dietze van Hoesel [1] and Dr Nicolaas Carel Heinrich Wijngaards, [2] both Dutch citizens, in the Indonesian city of Surabaya. During World War II, his father was made to work on the infamous Burma Railway in Thailand, while John with his mother and three brothers were prisoners of war in Malang, Surakarta and Ambarawa. [3] The family was repatriated to the Netherlands after the war.
John Wijngaards joined the Mill Hill Missionaries and was ordained a priest in 1959. In Rome he obtained the Licentiate of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Doctorate of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University (1963). His studies focused on The Formulas of the Deuteronomic Creed (dissertation, Brill, Leiden 1963). [4] Further research resulted in The Dramatisation of Salvific History in the Deuteronomic Schools (Brill, Leiden 1969) and a 360-page commentary on the book of Deuteronomy in the well-known Dutch series of commentaries published by Romen & Zonen (Roermond 1971). [5]
Wijngaards taught Sacred Scripture at St John's Major Seminary in Hyderabad, India (1963–1976). During that time he was instrumental in founding Amruthavani communication centre, Jeevan Jyoti theological institute for religious women and Jyotirmai, the statewide planning body for the Catholic dioceses of Andhra Pradesh. He served as part-time lecturer at the National Biblical Catechetical and Liturgical Centre in Bangalore and was, for a number of years, a member of the National Advisory Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. At the same time he produced a number of books on Sacred Scripture including his well-known Background to the Gospels. [6] Research on the ministries convinced him that the exclusion of women must be attributed to cultural obstacles, not to Scripture or Tradition. He urged the Indian hierarchy to start a process of exploring the full ordination of women. [7]
After a spell as Vicar General of the Mill Hill Missionaries in London (1976–1982), he became Director of Housetop, an international centre of adult faith formation (1982–2009). During that time (1983–1998) he was also Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Missionary Institute London which was affiliated to Louvain Catholic University and Middlesex University. During this time he pioneered the ‘Walking on Water’ series of video courses for adult faith formation which were co-produced by 15 countries in all continents. He wrote the scripts for nine half-hour film stories. He also produced the acclaimed 2 ½ - hour film Journey to the Centre of Love of which he was both the scriptwriter and the executive producer (see awards below).
In 1977 Wijngaards wrote Did Christ Rule out Women Priests? (McCrimmon, Great Wakering) in response to Inter Insigniores (1976), the declaration by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in which the Vatican's reasons for excluding women are clearly spelled out. In the decades that followed Rome reiterated its inability to confer ordination on women, culminating in Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1995) and subsequent documents by which the discussion by theologians was curtailed. [8] In protest, Wijngaards resigned from his priestly ministry on 17 September 1998. [9] His request for official reduction to the status of a lay person was acknowledged by Rome on 21 February 2000. On the 27th of May he married Jacqueline Clackson in a simple Church ceremony. Wijngaards has continued publishing his reasons for advocating the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood in a series of books, notably The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church [10] and No Women in Holy Orders? [11] In 1999 he established a website that has grown out to be the largest internet library with documentation on the ordination of women. Wijngaards says that speaking out does not undermine accepting the teaching authority of the Pope. [12] He firmly opposes the illegal ordination of women outside the established structure of the Church, as is done in the so-called Roman Catholic Women Priests movement. [13]
Since 2005 John Wijngaards has focused also on other issues he feels need reform in the Catholic Church. He created a pastoral website to deal with the sexual code. [14] He drafted the Catholic Scholars' Declaration on Authority in the Church which gained international support. [15] His Centre was reshaped to become the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. [16] Its main purpose is to publish independent Catholic scholarly assessments as 'a progressive theological think tank'. [17] The Institute submitted a 'Documented Appeal' to Pope Francis, urging him to restore the ancient ordained diaconate for women. [18] In 2016 he initiated the Catholic Scholars' Statement on the Ethics of Using Contraceptives [19] which was launched on a United Nations platform. [20]
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Christians of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic, Moravian, Hussite, Anglican, Church of the East, and Scandinavian Lutheran traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". Each of these groups does not necessarily consider consecration of the other groups as valid.
In certain Christian churches, holy orders are the ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament. The Anglo-Catholic tradition within Anglicanism identifies more with the Roman Catholic position about the sacramental nature of ordination.
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the terms used for individual clergy are clergyman, clergywoman, clergyperson, churchman, and cleric, while clerk in holy orders has a long history but is rarely used.
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches, the Methodist Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Free Church of England, view the diaconate as an order of ministry.
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination vary by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordination.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, priesthood is the power and authority of God given to man, including the authority to perform ordinances and to act as a leader in the church. A group of priesthood holders is referred to as a quorum.
The ordination of women to ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some major religious groups of the present time. It remains a controversial issue in certain Christian traditions and denominations in which "ordination" was often a traditionally male dominated profession.
Forward in Faith (FiF) is an organisation operating in the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church. It represents a traditionalist strand of Anglo-Catholicism and is characterised by its opposition to the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. It also takes a traditionalist line on other matters of doctrine. Credo Cymru is its counterpart in Wales. Forward in Faith North America (FIFNA) operates in the U.S.
Graham Douglas Leonard KCVO was an English Roman Catholic priest and former Anglican bishop. His principal ministry was as a bishop of the Church of England but, after his retirement as the Bishop of London, he became a Roman Catholic, becoming the most senior Anglican cleric to do so since the English Reformation. He was conditionally ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church and was later appointed a monsignor by Pope John Paul II.
In some Christian churches, a reader or lector is responsible for reading aloud excerpts of scripture at a liturgy. In early Christian times the reader was of particular value due to the rarity of literacy.
The Danube Seven — Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White — are a group of seven women from Germany, Austria and the United States who were ordained as priests on a ship cruising the Danube river on 29 June 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, Ferdinand Regelsberger, and third unknown bishop.
The sacrament of holy orders in the Catholic Church includes three orders: bishops, priests, and deacons, in decreasing order of rank, collectively comprising the clergy. In the phrase "holy orders", the word "holy" means "set apart for a sacred purpose". The word "order" designates an established civil body or corporation with a hierarchy, and ordination means legal incorporation into an order. In context, therefore, a group with a hierarchical structure that is set apart for ministry in the Church.
The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops and deacons are priestly orders as well, however in layman's terms priest refers only to presbyters and pastors. The church's doctrine also sometimes refers to all baptised (lay) members as the "common priesthood", which must not be confused with the ministerial priesthood of the consecrated clergy.
Clerical celibacy is the discipline within the Catholic Church by which only unmarried men are ordained to the episcopate, to the priesthood in some autonomous particular Churches, and similarly to the diaconate. In other autonomous particular churches, the discipline applies only to the episcopate.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the priesthood is the power and authority to act in the name of God for the salvation of humankind. Male members of the church who meet standards of worthy behavior and church participation are generally ordained to specific offices within the priesthood.
The Women's Ordination Conference is an organization in the United States that works to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1975, it primarily advocates for the ordination of women within the Catholic Church. The idea for the Conference came in 1974, when Mary B. Lynch asked the people on her Christmas list if it was time to publicly ask "Should Catholic women be priests?" 31 women and one man answered yes, and thus a task-force was formed and a national meeting was planned. This first meeting was held in Detroit, Michigan, on Thanksgiving weekend of 1975, with nearly 2,000 people in attendance.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
In the liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church, the term ordination refers to the means by which a person is included in one of the orders of bishops, priests or deacons. The teaching of the Catholic Church on ordination, as expressed in the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, is that only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, the male priesthood is not considered by the church a matter of policy but an unalterable requirement of God. As with priests and bishops, the church ordains only men as deacons. The church does not ordain anyone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery and may sanction or require therapy for priests who are transsexual, contending that these are an indicator of mental instability.
The American National Catholic Church (ANCC) is an independent Catholic church established in 2009 as a self-governing entity.
The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research is a British "progressive" think tank producing research on controversial issues within contemporary Roman Catholic theology. It does so by coordinating an international network of academics, most of whom are Roman Catholic.