Menands

Mary Theresa Streck has lived a life according to the principles of her Roman Catholic faith.

For 18 years, she was a nun in the order of Sisters of St. Joseph. While living in the Taylor Apartments in Troy, ministering to its low-income residents, she asked to be let out of her vows to marry Jay Murnane, who was released from his service as a priest.

Together, they continued their ministry for 20 years, still guided by faith to run the Ark, an after-school art program there, and to launch the Ark Community Charter School in Troy to continue to work with children struggling with issues caused by poverty. Though it is a public school where religion cannot be taught, Streck said, it is guided by her principles.

Widowed nine years ago, and now at 65 looking to wind down her education career, Streck still feels pulled by faith. This time, the step she is about to take may cause her to be excommunicated from the church she loves: This fall, she will join a group of women who say they have been legitimately ordained Roman Catholic priests.

"This is a continuation of a lifetime path," she said. "It's not like I woke up and said 'Now I'd like to pursue a life of ministry.'"

On June 22, Streck will travel to Falls Church, Va., to be ordained a deacon by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. She will follow that step this fall by being ordained a priest by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan in Albany.

"The movement started in 2002 with seven women being ordained," said Meehan, who is based in Florida. Now there are more than 150 in the United States, Europe, Canada and South America. While the Vatican says only men can be priests, the association claims its ordinations are valid.

The first group of female bishops, they say, were ordained by a Roman Catholic bishop. Meehan said his name will be revealed upon his death.

"The ordinations are valid but they are against canon law," Meehan said.

Some priests who have publicly advocated ordaining women have been removed from their posts. Roy Bourgeois was expelled from the priesthood last year for attending Janice Sevre-Duszynska's 2008 ordination in Lexington, Ky.

Streck attends St. Vincent DePaul Church in Albany, where a female administrator serves as parish life director and fills all the roles of pastor except performing sacraments.

Other women feel called to the priesthood, Streck said, but she is positioned to take the step.

"I am not going to lose my pension if I do this. I am not going to lose my job to do this," she said. "For me, it's a joyous passage."

The Rev. Kenneth Doyle, chancellor for public information for the Albany diocese, said women play valuable roles in the church but are not recognized as priests. Some two dozen women are running parishes as parish life directors, he said.

"There is no tradition for women priests in the Catholic Church. As popes have regularly stated, there is no theological basis for a woman to be ordained a priest," he said. "Women play other prominent roles in the church but have never been ordained to the priesthood."

Meehan argues there is no theological basis for barring women from the priesthood, and they were ordained in the church's earliest years.

She said Mary Magdelene, the first person to see the risen Jesus Christ, was long viewed as the "apostle to the apostles." Junia, a woman in the Bible's Book of Romans, is also referred to as "outstanding among the apostles."

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The church considers a woman who accepts ordination as having excommunicated herself, Doyle said. While the person is not supposed to take communion, he said, it is unlikely a priest or eucharistic minister would withhold it.

Since their ordinations are not recognized, women cannot say Mass in Catholic churches. Instead, some hold services in other churches' buildings, while some say Mass in their own homes as Streck intends to do in her house in Menands.

Steve Powers leads the upstate chapter of Call to Action, a group of Catholics that supports allowing women to become priests. The organization will lead a "witness for women" at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 8, outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception during the ordination of a new Catholic priest. They support the man being ordained but advocate allowing women to become priests too.

"We are just thrilled Mary Theresa has started to go on this path," Powers said. "Catholics are looking for spiritual leadership, and these women are providing it."

Why not seek to change the church's view before accepting ordination?

"I don't want to wait another 400 or 500 years," Streck said. "I don't put myself on a par with Rosa Parks, but if she hadn't sat down in the front of the bus, black people would still be sitting in the back. If suffragettes didn't fight for the right to vote, women probably wouldn't be able to vote. I've had people ask 'Why don't you become an Anglican priest?' And I say because I am not Anglican. I am a Roman Catholic."

tobrien@timesunion.com • 518-454-5092 • @timobrientu