c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ A Cleveland nun’s desire to transform the popular image of Mary Magdalene from repentant whore to model disciple has grown into a national grass-roots outpouring upholding the role of Catholic women in ministry.

On the Feast of St. Mary of Magdala, as she is referred to in the Bible, some 150 people gathered at Church of the Resurrection for a lecture and prayer service honoring the woman who, according to biblical accounts, stayed by Jesus’ side through his crucifixion and was the first witness of the resurrection.

The gathering in the Cleveland suburb of Solon was one of 100 services held throughout the country in response to entreaties from the Cleveland-based FutureChurch and Chicago-based Call to Action, two independent Catholic groups that favor the ordination of women.”It was very important that we let people know Jesus was an inclusive person,”said Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch.”Even though our parents tell us we’re equal, if we never see ourselves leading worship, we somehow internalize we’re somehow not as holy as men.” Mary Magdalene has had a checkered past in the church and popular culture. While it is still being unraveled by Bible scholars and historians, the journey of Mary Magdalene from the woman commissioned in the Gospel of John to spread the news of Jesus’ resurrection to the prostitute with the heart of gold is traced back to the decision of early interpreters to combine accounts of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany and eventually with an unnamed woman in Luke who was a public sinner.

Though considered groundless by biblical scholars, the vamp image stuck.

A scantily clad Jacqueline Logan as Mary Magdalene provided the prurient touches Cecil B. DeMille desired to appeal to a mass audience in his 1927 film”The King of Kings.”In Martin Scorsese’s”The Last Temptation of Christ,”Mary Magdalene is a tattooed prostitute.

Led by feminist Bible scholars, researchers are recapturing a biblical record that shows Mary Magdalene as a woman who participated in Jesus’ ministry, mourned at his crucifixion and, in three Gospel accounts, was the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared.”Women need role models from the ancient church … and here’s the perfect role model,”said Sister Mary Thompson of Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., author of the Paulist Press book”Mary of Magdala: Apostle and Leader.” In her own research as a graduate student at St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, another Cleveland suburb, Schenk said learning about Mary Magdalene enabled her to see herself in Scripture for the first time.

Eighteen months after Pope John Paul II and the Vatican closed off further discussion on the issue of women priests, Call to Action and FutureChurch began their own national dialogue for women in church leadership. Schenk developed the idea for the Mary of Magdala service as part of the project.

Last year there were 28 services around the country. This year the movement has grown almost fourfold to more than 100 services, organizers said.

While many Protestant churches this century have welcomed women clergy, the pope has been adamantly opposed to female priests. The official Catholic position is that Christ chose men for the 12 apostles and that the priesthood is linked to the male sex of Jesus.

Despite church teachings that men and women are equal before God, the way the prohibition on women priests”is heard by most Catholics, by most women, was that Jesus discriminated against women, that Jesus was a chauvinist,”Schenk said.

Holding up the ministry of women like Mary Magdalene shows the important roles played by women in Christ’s work and”the much more balanced leadership experiences”between the sexes in the early church, Schenk said.

Lecturing at the Solon church, Thompson emphasized that Mary of Magdala was the primary witness of the resurrection.”And our whole Christianity depends on that,”she said.

AMB END BRIGGS