On my podcast, “Your Radical Truth Podcast,” we explored the journey of spiritual awakening in an episode titled “A Journey of Spiritual Awakening: Catherine Maxey’s Path to Becoming a Woman Priest.” Catherine was ordained by an Independent Catholic Church, which split from the Catholic Church in the 1800s due to their disagreement on the infallibility of the Pope’s statements.

Catherine’s own spiritual journey led her to live in India, where she delved into Hinduism and Buddhism. Even there, she encountered patriarchy and realized that it was not a spiritual matter but a matter of power.

When we examine the issue of women priests solely from the perspective of Catholic women’s spirituality, the ruling of the Catholic Church against women becomes absurd. Who determines the calling of these women in the first place? Why should they be punished by a Church hierarchy that has ignored Genesis 1:27, which states that God made both male and female in the divine image?

Catholic women are indeed made in God’s image, and they have every right to answer God’s call. Let us not forget the findings of the 1976 Pontifical Biblical Commission, which stated that there is no biblical reason to prohibit women’s ordination.

In 2010, under Pope Benedict XVI, the hierarchy equated the grave sin of priest pedophilia with the ordination of women and the bishops who ordained them. This is a deplorable act against women in our Church.

Essentially, any woman in the Catholic Church today is prevented from answering God’s call because men in positions of power have disregarded sacred scripture and biblical research. How can one’s response to God’s call be labeled as a grave sin? Perhaps these men believed that this ruling would deter women from daring to come forward and become women Catholic priests.

That’s why Catherine had to seek an Independent Catholic Church to answer God’s call. Two other women, Father Anne and Rev. Shanon Sterringer, who were previous guests on my podcast, also answered their calling through an organization called Roman Catholic Women Priests – USA (www.romancatholicwomenpriest.org).

When will the hierarchy of the Catholic Church realize that God’s call is not exclusive to men only? The real question here is, how can they, in good conscience, continue to obstruct God’s call to women in this Church today?