Author: Ellie Harty

Every few days I have to visit and find them. Yes, there is the green and brown frog blinking at me until I get too close and she cannot stand it and bolts into the water. Ah, over there, thank heavens, is the turtle basking in afternoon sun; don’t let the others know, but he’s…
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As much as I love a moral dilemma, I also love a challenge, especially one in which I gain new perspectives and grow in understanding. I refer my post last week titled “A Moral Dilemma,” which engendered more commentary and response than I expected! One especially challenged me to examine how surface our thinking can…
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I am always fascinated by “moral dilemmas”, and so, as you can imagine, I am in a state of constant fascination these days since there are so many demanding our attention out there in our world. The good news is I feel rather equipped to deal with them, as maybe you do, because I’ve had…
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He could have been speaking about us, Irish author, Niall Williams, poetically capturing our ancient and current plight. No matter what we do or say, we women and other marginalized people are unable to “escape the feeling that folded against (our) back” are “wings that have failed to open.” Oh, it is not that we,…
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There was no way I could not weave women’s suffrage into this narrative today, for tomorrow, August 26, 2020, is the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. What a journey they undertook, what a victory they earned. And what a reminder that to truly realize equality, we…
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Never mind our personal politics, we in the Women’s Ordination Conference have to be jubilant: A Black and Indian-American woman is on the ticket for the highest office in our land! Catholic Church hierarchy: Take heed. Equality and inclusion are coming your way – fast. Your medieval misogynistic mindset is on notice, and you cannot…
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I could be facetious and call this event “Biking for God” but that would be an all-encompassing, community building, good thing. Instead, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia called it “Biking for Vocations” and, needless to say, they were not biking for you, ladies – or any gender other than male. From August 5 through August 9,…
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This June, only five us stood outside our city’s cathedral to hold up our “Ordain Women” signs as men only were being ordained inside. So few were able to attend the witness this year, we almost did not come at all fearing we would look weak or pathetic with such low numbers. But it was…
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I don’t envy the members of the Church hierarchy and all who follow their mandates. I don’t envy them when, with consciences afire, biases lit up, monstrous ignorance in flames and dangerous and destructive misogyny ablaze, they finally have to reckon with their treatment of, and discrimination against, women and all genders and all races…
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How, for all these years, could I not have noticed the last sentence of the Gospel of Matthew 14:13-21?  This Gospel relates the famous story of Jesus’ feeding multitudes of people from only a few loaves of bread and some fish. It is one of the most moving and inspirational of Jesus’ “miracles” assuring us,…
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