Roy Bourgeois

Roy Bourgeois (born 27 January 1938 in Louisiana) is a laicized Roman Catholic priest; and an American activist and founder, in 1990, of the human rights group School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch).

Ordained to the priesthood in 1972 in the Roman Catholic Church's Maryknoll society of apostolic life's Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America), Bourgeois was canonically dismissed forty years later, on October 4, 2012, from both the Maryknolls and the priesthood, because of his August 9, 2008 participation in what the Church said was the invalid ordination of a woman and "a simulated Mass" in Lexington, Kentucky.

Early life
Bourgeois was born in Lutcher, Louisiana. He grew up in a conservative working-class family, and attended the University of Southwestern Louisiana and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in geology.

After graduation, Bourgeois entered the United States Navy and served as an officer for four years. He spent two years at sea, one year at a station in Europe, and two tours of duty during one year in Vietnam, during the first of which he was injured and received the Purple Heart.

After military service, he entered the Maryknoll Society in 1966; then entered the seminary of the Catholic missionary society of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America), and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1972.

Activism
1972–1975 Sr. Bourgeois began the work of his priesthood in La Paz, Bolivia aiding the poor. In 1975 he was accused of, and was arrested for, attempting to overthrow Bolivian dictator General Hugo Banzer Suarez, a 1958 graduate of the School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia. Bourgeois was eventually deported from Bolivia and returned to the United States.

1980 Fr. Bourgeois moved to a Catholic Worker house in Chicago where he continued his work with the poor. He became an outspoken critic of US foreign policy in Latin America after four American churchwomen (three of them nuns, and two of them personal friends of Bourgeois) were killed by a death squad consisting of soldiers from the Salvadoran National Guard, some of whom had been trained at the SOA/WHINSEC. Killed were Sister Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Sister Ita Ford, and Sister Dorothy Kazel.

1989 Fr. Bourgeois's criticism of US foreign policy in Latin America intensified on November 16, 1989 when six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and the housekeeper's daughter were massacred on the campus of Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. Armed men in uniform burst into their shared residence and indiscriminately gunned-down everyone within. The massacre was performed by the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite unit of the Salvadoran Army, and a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion created in 1980 at SOA/WHINSEC.

1990 Fr. Bourgeois founded the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), a not-for-profit organization that seeks to close the SOA (since 2000 known as WHINSEC) and to change U.S. foreign policy in Latin America by educating the public, lobbying Congress and participating in creative, nonviolent resistance such as demonstrations and nonviolent protest. The SOA/WHINSEC has long maintained that it does not teach tactics that can be used on civilians but, rather, simply sharpens the military skills of soldiers from participating countries. Its website says it "provides professional education and training for civilian, military and law enforcement students." SOA Watch claims its work caused the Pentagon to respond to the growing anti-SOA movement with a PR campaign to give the SOA a new image. "In an attempt to disassociate the school with its horrific past," the SOA Watch website claims, "the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in January of 2001."

1998 Fr. Bourgeois testified before a Spanish judge seeking the extradition of Chile's ex-dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

2008 In August 2008, in keeping with his belief that women should be ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood, Fr. Bourgeois was a celebrant in, and delivered the homily at the ordination ceremony of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of Womenpriests, at a Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington, Kentucky.

2011 Fr. Bourgeois was briefly detained by police at the Vatican on 17 October when he tried to deliver a petition to the Holy See with a number of women priests, who were dressed in their liturgical garments.

2012 Fr. Bourgeois was part of a panel discussion at the New York premiere of the documentary Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. The film features activists for women’s ordination in the Catholic Church, and included clips of an interview with him.

Federal prison
Fr. Bourgeois has spent over four years in Federal prisons for non-violent protests, including entering Fort Benning. He and over 240 peace activists have been tried and jailed for peacefully demonstrating at the gates of the SOA/WHINSEC.

Excommunication
The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree in May 2008 formally declaring that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest, and the persons attempting to ordain her, are automatically excommunicated. Three months later Fr. Bourgeois was a celebrant in, and delivered the homily during the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska under the auspices of the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which rejects the Church's teaching on the all-male priesthood. The ceremony was not recognized by the Vatican; and its May 2008 declaration meant that Bourgeois was excommunicated latae sententiae.

Instead, Bourgeois received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which explained what the letter called his "errors" along with "a genuine concern for his salvation." It gave him 30 days from October 21, 2008 to recant his "belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated." Bourgeois refused; and so was, at least technically, excommunicated latae sententiae on November 24, 2008.

For the next nearly four years Bourgeois continued to both act and be recognized as a priest, and to do the work of his calling, while he and Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer acting on Bourgeois' behalf, asked for discussions and negotiatations on the matter with the Maryknoll Society and, through it, the Holy See. At no time, during any of it, did Bourgeois recant his position on women's ordination to the priesthood.

Many devout Roman Catholics, though, insist that there's nothing to discuss; that on May 22, 1994, the Venerable John Paul II released an apostolic letter, addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, entitled "On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis)," which closes as follows:

"Arguments against this clear and authoritative teaching," wrote Keith Fournier on Catholic Online, "sometimes come from people who do not understand that the priesthood is not a job and have succumbed to the 'rights' mentality of the current age. Other times they come from people who have no understanding of the sacramental nature of the Church. Both groups may include among them Catholics who, as in too many other areas of doctrine, have not been properly catechized."

Holding that the Roman Catholic church has no authority to ordain women, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the church's ban on women priests at the Vatican's 2012 Holy Thursday chrism Mass.

Maryknoll expulsion
On March 18, 2011, Fr. Bourgeois was given a letter from Fr. Edward M. Dougherty, Maryknoll's Superior General, and Edward J. McGovern, its Secretary General, warning Bourgeois that he had 15 days to recant his support for women's ordination or he would face expulsion from the society. Bourgeois responded in a letter dated April 8, 2011, stating that he could not recant without betraying his conscience.

On July 22, 2011, 157 Catholic priests signed a letter, addressed to Dougherty, in support of Bourgeois's priesthood and work, and his right to conscience. While the letter did not specifically address the issue of women's ordination, it did indicate the signees' support of the right of priests to speak from conscience without being in danger of sanction.

Following his refusal to recant, the society issued Bourgeois a second canonical warning; the final notice of pending removal from the Maryknoll Society, on July 27, 2011. In his August 8, 2011 letter of response, Bourgeois wrote, in part:

On August 16, 2011, Bourgeois's canon lawyer Fr. Thomas Doyle wrote a letter to the Maryknoll Society asking that "reputable theologians" be brought in to examine the case "in order to look much more deeply" into two central issues: the church's claim that the teaching on women's ordination is infallible, and the right of a Catholic "to act and think according to the dictates of his conscience" even if the conclusions put one in conflict with the church's highest authorities.

In February 2012, Maryknoll's U.S. regional superior, Fr. Mike Duggan, told both Bourgeois and Doyle, over the phone, that the order's general council, which consists of its superior general and three assistant generals, would be voting, in March 2012, on whether to dismiss Bourgeois from the Maryknoll Society.

In March 2012, the four-person general council met to vote, but because canon law mandates that at least five people must vote on issues of dismissal from religious orders, Duggan had told Doyle that an unnammed fifth person from the order had been brought in to join the general council in the vote. The Maryknoll Society's official statement about the vote was that it was a split decision, with no clear outcome. However, both Bourgeois and Doyle said, after the vote, that Duggan told them that only two of the five general council members voted for Bourgeois's dismissal, while three abstained. The general council then sent a letter to the Vatican containing the results of the vote.

On June 6, 2012 Bourgeois and Doyle met with Dougherty and a mediator at the society's headquarters in New York. Bourgeois and Doyle said no mention was made of the dismissal vote; and Bourgeois added that the two-hour meeting focused on the issue of conscience and "the importance of people of faith and members of Maryknoll to be able to speak openly and freely without fear ... of being dismissed or excommunicated." Doyle said the outcome of the meeting was "far different than we expected and far more positive."

Laicization
On Monday, November 19, 2012, the Maryknoll Society's Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers issued an official statement indicating that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ruled, on October 4, 2012, that Bourgeois had been canonically dismissed from both the Maryknolls, and the Roman Catholic priesthood, thereby laicizing him. The full statement from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers:

Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, Bourgeois's canon lawyer, said he was surprised, especially after he and Bourgeois met with Maryknoll's superior general, Fr. Edward Dougherty, in June, and the issue of dismissal had not been discussed. "The idea then was that things would continue and they would not dismiss Roy and they would continue to dialogue," Doyle said. "And then this just happened, unilaterally. We had no idea."

In response, Bourgeois issued the following official statement:

Support
In its November 20, 2012 statement, Erin Saiz Hanna, Executive Director of the Women's Ordination Conference wrote of Bourgeois: "While he is devastated to lose his community, and saddened by the harshness of this final step, he remains steadfast in his faith and conscience. He has asked for solitude and prayers during this time of transition."

In its December 3, 2012 editorial column, the National Catholic Reporter stated that "the call to priesthood is a gift from God," and came out unequivocally in support of Roy Bourgeois and his campaign in support of women's ordination to the Catholic priesthood. The editors concluded:

Awards

 * Gandhi Peace Award (1994)
 * Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award (1997)
 * Thomas Merton Award (2005)
 * Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with School of the Americas Watch (2009)