Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
On November 3, 2000, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a billboard stating "You're waiting for a sign from GOD? This is it! Ordain women" went up on Milwaukee's east side. Leaders of the group say they hope the sign will inform people that papal efforts to silence the debate have not succeeded. The 25th anniversary of the Women's Ordination Conference will be marked with a convention at the Milwaukee Hilton. The conference overlaps a "three-day national Call to Action conference or reform-minded Catholics at the Midwest Express Center." Pope John Paul II, for his part, has called for a stop to the debate. "His message has been clear: Women cannot be ordained to the priesthood, and that's that." Advocacy groups, however, have been fueled by a shortage of priests. At the same time, conservative seminaries in some parts of the United States have witnessed increasing enrollments and ordinations. Many women are taking active rolls to promote change. Ginny Kiernan Richards, who is doing a doctoral dissertation in theology at Marquette University, said, "I am continuing to work within Roman Catholicism...As long as there are women and young girls who dream, and hope, and look at me as a sign of hope, I can't leave. And sometimes I want to very much because it hurts." The Women's Ordination Conference has undergone changes which include an expansion in its number of employees, the completion of a survey that identified 265 women who felt the call to ordination, starting four annual scholarships for graduate students, launching a website at www.womensordination.org and preparing to start an email alert service on relevant issues and events. Many observers do not expect John Paul's successor to be very different, but there have been members of the Church who have supported the women's cause. Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland was the minority in 1992 when he called for expanded roles for women and when he questioned the theological arguments for a male-only priesthood. It was in 1992 that a majority of U.S. Catholic bishops voted to support the status-quo. Father Andrew Nelson, St. Francis Seminary rector, said "people keep raising the issue when he and (Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Sklba) visit parishes...Their concern is their need, not the gender of their ordained minister."