Author: Ellie Harty

A church community in Greenwich Village in New York City recently hosted an art installation. One of the “pieces” was a makeshift confessional. It was painted white and softly curtained. A screen cutout in decorated shapes both beautifully welcomed and separated speaker and listener. Those entering were not there to “confess” in any traditional sense.…
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It’s nearly May. It’s gorgeous outside…and for once we just need to laugh and be joyous! Here is something you may have seen before, but it always makes me laugh out loud. It’s originally from Dr. David M. Scholer, a former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn’t Be Ordained 10. A…
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How broken is your heart? Mine certainly is. I’m speaking, of course, about the burning of the central part of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As probably many of you, I loved the Cathedral: its position in the center of that most exquisite city; its romantic presence and Gothic majesty; and, yes, the tribute I…
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THIS IS HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN!HOLY THURSDAY WITNESSAPRIL 18, 2019 at 11:00AM Sister Cities Park, 18th & JFK Parkway(Across from Sts. Peter & Paul Basilica)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Remember that song from the Sixties, “Stop, in the name of Love!”? Don’t you sometimes want to sing it, shout it, pray it, from the rafters of your…
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Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for your thoughtful and thought-provoking responses to my March 26 blog post quandary over the choice for the theme for our annual Holy Thursday Witness for the Ordination of Women across from the Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia (at 9am if you care to join us…
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Last year, I was asked to write a poem for Women’s History Month to be read at Mass, and the priest actually let me read this!  As we close out March and begin April, that month of rebirth, I offer you this:  A Church for Our Daughters Would it be stone-clad?With some rocks left overFor…
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We in the Southeastern Pennsylvania division of Women’s Ordination Conference on each Holy Thursday hold a witness calling for the ordination of women. We stand in song and prayer outside the Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia in all kinds of weather – rain, snow, sleet, heat – while, inside, the (Vatican-sanctioned) male…
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Our rules. Our rituals. The Catholic Church’s. Our society’s. Our own. How did we get so out of date. So stuck. So imprisoned. And, most importantly, how can we finally be free. I am currently reading John Banville’s Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir – just in time for Saint Patrick’s Day, I suppose, although that…
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If you have not read Alice McDermott’s latest book, The Ninth Hour, I urge you to run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore, library, or e-book download! Beautifully written, unsentimentally poignant, compelling and affecting, it actually makes you proud to be Catholic just based on what so many nuns in the past have been doing…
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How much more can we take? We wore our blue armbands this past weekend to stand in solidarity with victims of sex abuse. We asked over and over for accountability, change, and redress from the Church that betrayed them, and yet, it seems daily, more and more abuse comes into the light. We protested unfair…
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