Who Gets To Speak?

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam dive into the story of women’s ministry in the church—past, present, and future. From personal stories to hard truths about church history, they reflect on how far we’ve come since the first women celebrated the Eucharist 50 years ago—and how far we still have to go. With honesty and hope, they talk about God’s call on every life, the ongoing struggle for justice and inclusion, and why open conversations about faith matter more than ever.

Highlights:

• 50 years since women first presided at the altar—what that means today
• Real stories that shaped their views on women’s ordination
• How justice, inclusion, and calling go hand in hand
• The importance of listening to Scripture and each other with open hearts
• Why your story matters—and how sharing it can change lives

Chapters:

00:00 Celebrating Women's Ministry in the Church

03:06 Personal Journeys and Perspectives on Ordination

05:48 Justice and Inclusion in Ministry

12:03 Historical Context of Women's Roles in the Church

18:01 Current State and Future of Women's Ordination

20:55 Encouraging Conversations on Faith and Inclusion

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.137)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, joined today by Adam Eichelberger. He is our Director of Communications. And we're going to be talking about who gets to speak in the church. We're going be talking about ministry and callings and things today. Yesterday, July 29th, we celebrated the 50th anniversary

of the first Eucharist celebrated by a woman in the Diocese of Central New York. In a few weeks, a few short weeks, I'll be celebrating the ninth anniversary of my call to serve as the bishop of this diocese. And so on these anniversaries, as we think about women's ministry in the church and we're thinking about calling, this is an opportunity for us to speak about our faith. And so for you, listener, I don't know what your...

Feeling is what your beliefs are around calling some who gets to serve and who doesn't. but this is our conversation for today. And I invite you into the space of learning together that all of us are called to speak our faith. We're called to embody it certainly. And we're called to speak about those things that matter most to us. Now, Adam, I know that you've had been on a journey of late with a women's ordination and with.

serving in the church. And so I'm going to turn this over to you. We're going to do it a little bit differently today, listener, and have a bit of question and answer and conversation. We're going to speak about our faith today. So take it away, Adam.

Adam Eichelberger (01:42.338)
Yeah. Well, thank you, Bishop. listener, I appreciate you joining us in this conversation. And to kind of give a little bit of history, some of you may know this, some of you may not, but I've been serving in church work and church ministry for 21 years this year. And the majority of that time was spent serving in the context of the Roman Catholic Church. And that's where I was born and raised. I received my sacraments.

I was, my children were baptized as members of the Roman Catholic Church, but then we technically were baptized as Christians. So that's a weird statement for me to say anyway. But so much, all of my context for ordained ministry has been that of men in ordained ministry. Obviously we all know the Roman Catholic Church acknowledges the priesthood for men alone. And as I made my journey as my family and I made our journey to the Episcopal faith.

This was a big hurdle for me to clear because I had, this is basically all I'd known my whole life, and I had heard it expounded upon by more than a couple voices so that it made sense that women shouldn't be a part of ordained ministry. And I remember really early on Bishop in this, and you and I have talked about this together privately, that I remember an interview with Stephen Colbert and he, lifelong Catholic as well, talked about his first time going to an Episcopal service and seeing a female

Bishop DeDe (02:51.836)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (03:06.702)
priest and how he said he got emotional because he felt like for one of the first times in his life he was seeing a more complete vision of who Jesus actually is. And I remember myself the first time I got to go to a service, go to Mass and receive communion from a female priest, which for me at one point in my life I would have considered somebody like that.

Bishop DeDe (03:07.365)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (03:20.028)
Hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (03:36.32)
a heretic in my own religious journey. And I remember feeling so emotional and getting choked up and sitting in my pew and crying a little bit, having a good cry, because it was simultaneously very beautiful. But I also had this deep sense of needing to repent, which again, I've shared with you about Bishop and I don't have any qualms talking about it here on the podcast. But for me, it was so

Bishop DeDe (03:37.573)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (04:06.264)
For the first time in my life, I feel like I was able to see God more clearly. And I think that for me, this issue for a long time has kind of gotten distilled down to, and listeners for you listening online, like just as a podcast, not a video, I'm using air quotes here as a social justice issue. And I'm putting that in air quotes because so many people who are opponents, in my experience, of female ordination.

Bishop DeDe (04:11.504)
Mm hmm.

Bishop DeDe (04:27.172)
Okay.

Adam Eichelberger (04:35.086)
make it about like some sort of culture war moment. And really, I don't feel like it is. And Bishop, was hoping maybe you could speak about this a little bit because this is absolutely a justice issue. You mentioned the Reverend Betty Bones Shees and her anniversary celebrating Eucharist. And she spoke about this being an issue of justice. But why is this so important? And I don't know this is the best first place to start, but this is where we're going to start listening. Why is this?

Bishop DeDe (04:35.152)
Thank

Right.

Bishop DeDe (04:48.496)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (04:55.888)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (05:04.406)
Why is this issue of justice so important? Because it seems like to me this makes a lot of sense because Jesus made justice so paramount in what he came to teach us. So like why is this particular justice issue so important for us as Christians?

Bishop DeDe (05:11.636)
Ugh.

Bishop DeDe (05:19.514)
Well, it's such a great question and listener, I invite you to what would you, what would you say in response to that? How would you talk about this? I'm going to go to the, you know, sort of basics. God created us. And I do believe that for each of us, there's a kind of a purpose. if we want to do purpose-driven life sort of language, but I think each of us is called to utilize our talents and skills and giftedness that we have.

for the glory of God in whatever way we can, in as many ways as we can. And when we have a gift or a skill to praise God and to teach and preach and embolden the lives of others, why would we not empower that ability? And to limit it based on gender or based on some other arbitrary reason.

is to limit God, is to put ourselves in God's place. The fullness of God is known in each of us being holy who we're created to be. And so to trust God with that and say, you know, if the right person to preach is a woman, then the woman should be preaching because we want to hear what the Holy Spirit's doing and not limit God because we have decided we know better than God.

And often people who are opposed to, you know, full communion or openness in this area, it's because they have an idea that that just can't happen because it's not right. And yet if the Holy Spirit, you know, if the rocks and stones can cry out, then I think all humans are called to speak the truth of God in them. And yes, listener, before I can feel some of you going a direction,

If someone is speaking heresy or inaccuracies around scripture, we hold each other accountable. We look at the gospel of Jesus Christ and say, well, let's go back and look at the gospel. Let's read the text. What is Jesus doing to recognize that Mary Magdalene was the first to experience and see and understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ? What a primacy.

Bishop DeDe (07:42.104)
of role and purpose in that moment for Mary Magdalene that she witnesses the resurrection and she is the apostle to the apostles running back to tell Peter and John and come and see what God, know, I've seen the Lord and they run back. so all of us are called to proclaim the risen Jesus when we see Jesus in the ways that we do. And we want to affirm that in one another.

Adam Eichelberger (08:12.963)
And one of the things that I'm kind of mindful of in Bishop as we were having this conversation around this episode, and not to open too much of a can of worms, but we talked a little bit about the history of what Jerome did.

Bishop DeDe (08:30.576)
Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (08:30.83)
in translating the scripture in the composition of the Vulgate and not to get too much into the weeds, but I think a little bit of this sentiment towards women not having a calling or a role in ordained ministry kind of comes from there. Can you kind of give us the 30,000 foot overview as to where this maybe finds its roots?

Bishop DeDe (08:33.692)
This is hard.

Bishop DeDe (08:53.552)
Well, I, I, this is one of my favorites to talk about because I think it's so important to recognize that a lot of these things we hold to be true and self evident if we're going to use that language, actually came from, from our, what we've inherited from our, forefathers and the, you know, the patristic fathers and all. Jerome had some really wonderful ideas. One was because he was going to translate.

what was Greek, the Septuagint into Latin, that he wanted to know where the sources came from. And so he was really big on going to Hebrew that the Jewish scriptures would be translated in Hebrew and he would hold that standard. But when he was looking at Genesis and the original text, and in some Bibles you'll see this, the original text read,

and the serpent tempted Eve and Adam who was with her. Well, Jerome had some beliefs about women. really, really had strong beliefs and he took that line out. He actually removed it. And you can, and down through the centuries, I mean, I've heard in my own lifetime, sermon after sermon after sermon, talking about Adam was vulnerable to Eve's temptations.

because Eve was vulnerable to the serpent and the sin came through the woman. And misunderstanding that scriptural reference because Jerome took it out. All of us have inherited our faith that has come to us. And as Jesus tells us in the gospels that scripture is worthy of reproof and correction, that sometimes what has been reproved

or thought to be corrected, and I'm using air quotes here myself, like Jerome did with the, you know, changing the verse in Genesis, actually was destabilizing and confusing and harmful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suddenly male is divine and female is demonic. And we certainly see that written about in the way people thought about it, because the temptation was Eve.

Bishop DeDe (11:16.334)
And it always is equated with sex or was at a certain point and not recognizing that there's much about our human condition that's broken our selfishness, our greed, dehumanization, our racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic way of thinking, where we're always trying to pigeonhole who's out and who's in, who is not good enough for God and who is when

The gospel of Jesus Christ says, for all are good enough for God, for God has come to us in the person of Jesus that we all may be part of this ongoing story, that we're called to be part of the telling of God's good news of Jesus Christ.

Adam Eichelberger (12:03.892)
And it's a good reminder for us that without context, scripture becomes pretext. And if we don't understand the history of it, now all of a sudden we kind of fall into a trap that we didn't even know was laid for us.

Bishop DeDe (12:12.389)
Yes.

Bishop DeDe (12:19.47)
Mm That's right. Yeah. Because even, you know, even the gospel texts themselves, it's, you know, the earliest gospel was written long after Jesus's resurrection and, and ascension. So it was first verbal, like most things, it was a story told verbally, and then people started writing it down. Well, even when they started writing it down, they started putting their understanding into it.

And so when you look at the four canonical gospels, each one of them has a different kind of understanding in the way they're talking. It doesn't mean any of them is not worthy. It means that it's, coming from a lived experience of God. So all of us are called to speak, to use our words and to, to, proclaim Jesus in the ways that we can. And when we get it wrong, to change our mind, to repent.

to apologize and correct our thinking. And one of the ways and one of the places we've needed to correct our thinking is around who's included and who's not. God is including all people and calling all of us to proclaim the good news of Jesus.

Adam Eichelberger (13:35.296)
Absolutely. And one of the things that really stood out to me, and again, we're time stamping this a little bit, folks, because we're speaking about something that happened just last night for us. But one of the things that really stood out to me is it was mentioned during the liturgy that it was very unorthodox for Betty Boneshees to have to wait essentially a whole year.

Bishop DeDe (13:44.633)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (13:56.602)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (14:02.202)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (14:02.67)
after her ordination. And obviously, and I'm going to use language that is not correct in today's context, but that her ordination was viewed as invalid and illicit by the church. There were a ton of consequences for the ordination of both Betty Bunches and the rest of the Philadelphia 11. But

Bishop DeDe (14:13.125)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (14:17.979)
Yes.

Adam Eichelberger (14:26.336)
It feels to me, and again, my perspective on this is pretty new and pretty fresh, and maybe I'm looking at the world through rose-colored, rose-tinted lenses, but I feel like a ton of progress has been made in opening up women to fully embody the call to ministry, to fully embody the priesthood that Jesus gave to us. I'm interested in your perspective on this, Bishop.

If you want to call it like a state of the union on on women's ordained ministry in the church I would love to hear you because your story is is so Impactful as well. I know you've shared with me and you've shared with plenty of folks and I think maybe in on this podcast about your journey from Your childhood not being allowed to be an acolyte the people in your life shunning you as you responded to this call, but like

Bishop DeDe (14:59.076)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:18.31)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (15:23.988)
now that we find ourselves where we are, like, has the work all been done? Or do we feel like, or do you feel like, or is there room for us to continue to grow and improve in the church?

Bishop DeDe (15:34.892)
goodness, yeah, we're not there yet. We are as much improved. mean, obviously we have women holding offices, but in many ways what we're seeing in the church right now is that the institution of the church, rather than being transformed by women serving the church, more often women are changed as they serve in the church.

the institution remains fairly male focused where there's certain competitiveness to it. And there are things that are kind of traditionally, you know, talked about as being kind of male attributes. But we are making progress bit by bit. The freedom of today's women in ministry, when I first started out, women should never have their fingernails painted and certainly never have their fingernails painted red. That was just.

You just didn't do that. Didn't work, you know, no jewelry when celebrating and all those things have changed quite a lot. but then we also have, women, who are all across the church are paid less than their male catapult parts. women's access to certain types of ministries continue to be somewhat limited, although the that's broken down a bit.

Now, in terms of with transgender women or men, when we talk about whether it's with LGBTQ plus community, or we're talking about women who are serving, there continues to be a working it out. For some women in some diocese, I know I was in a diocese where women could be an associate rector, but not the rector.

or they could be the rector of a small parish but not the cardinal parishes. Often you'll see in discernment processes, there may be a token woman and then all men. That certainly was how it was in the last couple of years in some places. So we're on a journey. It is much better, but it also is a healing and an ongoing work of the church to

Bishop DeDe (17:57.604)
affirm God's call on all people.

Adam Eichelberger (18:01.102)
So I think the kind of the last thing that resonates with me and this is a question from me to you Bishop and listeners, maybe you'll agree with this. And I know that some of you who are listening are Episcopalians and maybe have been lifelong and maybe the idea of women in ordained ministry is not new or foreign to you. Maybe something you grew up with and in some respects, I very much envy you, but.

Bishop DeDe (18:13.691)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:20.796)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (18:26.74)
My question to you then Bishop is this, for folks like me, and maybe folks who are listening, who have a hard time talking about this, because for me, I know that there are people in my life, family members and friends who...

who wholeheartedly disagree with me on this subject. And even if they really realized where I was on Sundays, I don't hide it, but if they really, they would call me a heretic and they would, they would, and they would make, they would lob some accusations at me. Like how, how can we clearly share about the importance of this in our faith? Like how, how can, how can somebody like me really articulate and not because I don't really necessarily know if I have all the tools.

Bishop DeDe (18:48.464)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (18:54.321)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:57.819)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (19:15.138)
to sway somebody on the issue. But how can somebody like me or somebody like a listener really talk about this with clarity and being succinct, almost like sharing a little bit of a testimony about the importance of this in their life?

Bishop DeDe (19:24.956)
Thank you.

It's such a good question. What comes to mind is to first of all, as we talk about inclusivity and calling, to try to focus in on God, not on our emotion or whether we're including enough people or whether we're really sexist or, and there are times when we maybe discover that we're uncomfortable with, you know, certain things.

I certainly have had people, you know, this year, it's not like it's far away from us, who just are more comfortable with male clergy than they are with female. And that's okay. We all grow at the rate that we grow, but to at least recognize that we're caught up in trying to proof test or clarify for God what is right and what is wrong.

It may be that seeing a different gender as priest from ourselves is convicting, where we realize that we've never really finished doing our work about our own sense of our security with our own gender or with other genders. And so sometimes a priest will be challenging to us because there some things that need to be worked out.

Sometimes there needs to be some work done because we've, you know, we kind of want to approve everything and then realize, well, what we want are all persons to be able to fulfill their call with God. And that's really the bottom line. so, listener, for you, whatever may have been percolating for you in this conversation, I encourage you to find someone with whom to talk about

Bishop DeDe (21:24.092)
your own perceptions, your own understandings, and ways in which this conversation might be a conversation that you now take forward. So we're passing the baton to you, handing it off. Let's speak about our faith and let's speak about the journey we've been on to affirm the calling of men and women and transgender people and all persons into the life of Christ and the life of their faith, whatever your faith may be.

And until we speak again, I hope that you will be blessed and be a blessing and continue to speak your faith. Take good care.