John Wijngaards

John Wijngaards

John Wijngaards (born September 20, 1935 in Surabaya , Indonesia ) is a Dutch author and Christian theologian . He is particularly known for his advocacy of the ordination of women.

Life

Wijngaards spent his childhood in Southeast Asia . He became a member of the Roman Catholic Mission Society of St. Joseph of Mill Hill . After the Second World War , Wijngaards studied Roman Catholic theology . In 1959 he became a Roman Catholic priest ordained . Wijngaards studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and in 1963 received a doctorate in Catholic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome . After completing his studies, he worked at St John's Major Seminary in Hyderabad , India from 1963 to 1976 .

During this time he was instrumental in founding the Amruthavani Communication Center, the Jeevan Jyoti Theological Institute for women religious and Jyotirmai, the national planning body for the Catholic dioceses of Andhra Pradesh. He also worked as a part-time lecturer at the National Biblical Catechetical and Liturgical Center in Bangalore and was a member of the National Advisory Council of the Indian Bishops' Conference for several years. Research into the ministries convinced him that excluding women from ordinations must be attributed to cultural prejudice, not to scripture or tradition. He urged the Indian hierarchy to begin a process of exploring the full ordination of women. From 1976 to 1982 he was Vicar General of the Mission Society of St. Joseph of Mill Hill in London .

Ministry of Women

In 1977 Wijngaards wrote "Did Christ rule out women priests?" In response to Inter Insigniores (1976), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's statement setting out the Vatican's reasons for excluding women. In the decades that followed, Rome's resistance to the ordination of women intensified, culminating in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1995) and later documents that further curtailed theologians' freedom of expression. On September 17, 1998, Wijngaards resigned from his priestly office in protest. Wijngaards has published his reasons for supporting the ordination of women for the Catholic priesthood in a number of books, including The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church and No Women in Holy Orders? In 1999 he founded a website that became the largest internet library on women's ordination. The website also has a German section. He himself makes it clear that his critical speech does not undermine the Pope's authority to teach. Wijngaards rejects the illegal ordination of women outside the established structure of the church, as is the case in the so-called Roman Catholic women's priestly movement.

Wijngaard's Institute for Catholic Research

Since 2005, John Wijngaards has also concentrated on other issues that are in need of reform in the Catholic Church. He created a pastoral website dealing with the sex code. He drafted the Declaration of Catholic Theologians on Authority in the Church, which received international support. Its center was redesigned to become the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research . Its main purpose is to publish independent Catholic academic reviews as a progressive theological think tank . The institute presented Pope Francis with a "documented appeal" urging him to reinstate the old ordained diaconate for women . In 2016, Wijngaards initiated the Declaration of Catholic Scholars on the Ethics of Contraceptive Use, which was launched on a United Nations platform.

Works (selection)

• The Formulas of the Deuteronomic Creed , Brill, Leiden 1963
• The Dramatization of Salvific History in the Deuteronomic Schools , Brill, Leiden 1969
• Background to the Gospels , St Paul's, Delhi 1970
• God's Word to Israel , TPI, Ranchi 1971
• Did Christ Rule Out Women Priests? , McCrimmons, Great Wakering 1977
• Communicating God's Word , McCrimmons, Great Wakering 1978
• Reading God's Word to Others , ATC, Bangalore 1981
• Experiencing Jesus , Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame 1981
• Inheriting the Master's Cloak , Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame 1985
• The Gospel of John and his Letters, Michael Glazier , Wilmington 1986
• The Spirit in John , Michael Glazier, Wilmington 1987
• God Within Us , Collins, London 1988
• My Galilee My People , Housetop, London 1990
• For The Sake of His People , McCrimmons, Great Wakering 1990
• Together in My Name , Housetop, London 1991
• I Have No Favorites , Housetop, London 1992
• How to Make Sense of God , Sheed & Ward, Kansas City 1995
• The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church. Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition (Darton, Longman & Todd, London 2001)
• No Holy Orders for Women? The Ancient Women Deacons (Canterbury Press, London 2002; Herder & Herder, New York 2006)
• The Ordained Women Deacons of the Church's First Millennium (Canterbury Press, London 2011)
• AMRUTHA. What the Pope's man found out about the Law of Nature (Author House, Bloomington 2011)

Prizes and awards (selection)

• Grand Prix , as screenwriter for the film Journey to the Center of Love , 10th International Catholic Film Festival, Warsaw 1995.
• Bronze Award , for the same film at the 1997 Film Fest Houston .
• Chris Award , for the same film at the 1997 Columbus Film Festival .
• Marga Klompé Award , 2005.

Web links

• John Wijngaards
• Wijngaards Institute
• Womenpriests.org
• Womenpriests.org: John Wijngaards (German)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “Only an honest judgment in the light of the Spirit of Christ should decide the question of women's office; no convention or personal imagination. After all, it is the priesthood of Christ, not ours, that we speak of. ”- John Wijngaards: The ministry of women and social myth In: New Ministries in India , ed. DS Amalorpavadass, Bangalore 1976, pp. 50-82.
2. ↑ Did Christ rule out women priests? by John Wijngaards. Contents page. In: womenpriests.org , accessed March 28, 2018 (McCrimmon Publishing, 1986, ISBN 0-85597-204-1 )
3. ↑ Responsum ad Dubium (1995), Ad Tuendam Fidem (1998).
4. ↑ “The prohibition of the ordination of women in Rome is not legitimately based on scripture or tradition. The decision did not come after proper consultation in the Church. The ban will have detrimental effects on ecumenism and the spiritual well-being of believers. That is why I have a conscience to continue to express my sincere opposition. ”- The Times ; The Daily Telegraph , both September 18, 1998; The Tablet , September 19, 1998; The Guardian , September 24, 1998.
5. ^ The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church , Darton, Longman and Todd 2001, Continuum 2001; Media House Delhi 2002; Translations in Dutch, French, Italian and Japanese.
6. ^ No Women in Holy Orders? , Canterbury Press 2002; Crossroad 2006 as Women Deacons in the Early Church .
7. ^ John Wijngaards - Women Can Be Priests In: womenpriests.org , accessed March 28, 2018.
8. ↑ “He is very timely in presenting his evidence. Making reference to the writings of modern theologians would not pose a problem for those with access to a good library. But to be able to consult and print the text from John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) Commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences on the Question of Whether Feminine Sex or Adolescent Age Should Prevent the Acceptance of Orders - in original Latin if you so wish - is quite amazing! ”Bernadette Toal in Die Furrow 53 (2002) No. 5, May, pp. 316-317; see also Juliane Kern: Aachener Zeitung , June 11, 2009, p. 27.
9. ↑ Ordination of women in the Catholic Church In: womenpriests.org , accessed on March 28, 2018.
10. ↑ “When the church demands a loyal submission of the will and intellect, it does not demand a renunciation of its own power of thought. The church demands a much more valuable service, namely, an honest attempt to serve the faith with all of its spiritual powers. The Second Vatican Council in its decree Gaudium et spes No. 62 ensures the freedom of research, thought and freedom of all believers. ”- J. Wijngaards: The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church , London 2001, p. 20.
11. ↑ “It is our goal to enable the entire Catholic world community to accept women into all ministries. We will have failed if we do not incorporate our reforms into all structures and levels of the Catholic Church. Leaving the Church does not serve this purpose. We are now experiencing serious brokenness in the Church as half of its members are excluded from ordained offices. But the new wholeness that we want will be achieved through a confrontation with the hierarchy, painful as it may be, than through any step that would effectively remove us from the body of the Church. ”- Keynote speech on the first International Conference of Women’s Ordination Worldwide , Dublin June 2001. online (English)
12. ↑ The Catholic Church and Sexuality - The Body is Sacred In: thebodyissacred.org , accessed March 28, 2018.
13. ↑ churchauthority.org The Tablet , October 13, 2012; The Irish Times , February 19, 2013; Teólogos: Nuevo Papa debe democratize in Mexican News Forum , March 5, 2013. Clerical Whispers UK , February 2013.
14. ^ Gender Equality and Democracy in the Catholic Church - Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research In: wijngaardsinstitute.com , accessed March 28, 2018.
15. ↑ The Washington Post , October 4, 2014; The UK Independent , October 5, 2014; The Irish Mirror , November 18, 2014.
16. ^ Diaconate for Women - Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research In: wijngaardsinstitute.com , accessed on March 28, 2018.
17. ↑ Declaration on the ethics of contraception - Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research In: wijngaardsinstitute.com , accessed on March 28, 2018.
18. ^ Justine McCarthy: McAleese calls for Vatican to end contraception ban In: thetimes.co.uk , accessed March 28, 2018.
19. ↑ Catholic heavyweights clash over teaching on contraception In: irishtimes.com , accessed March 29, 2018.
20. ↑ The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ( Memento of the original of March 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: womenpriests.org , accessed March 29, 2018. 
21. ↑ NO WOMEN IN HOLY ORDERS? ( Memento of March 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: womenpriests.org , accessed on March 29, 2018.
22. ↑ Amrutha - model of raw female energy In: thebodyissacred.org , accessed on March 29, 2018.
23. ↑ The quote read: “The Festival Grand Prize is awarded to 'Journey to the Center of Love' for its in-depth description of the process through which people of different cultures and nations discover the Christian faith and thus come to God and his Son Jesus Christ . "
24. ↑ "Dr. Wijngaard's work contributes to emancipation in church and society, which is one of the concerns of the Marga Klompé Foundation. His plea for the renewal of the priesthood and the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church is a great example of patient reflection on the roles of Catholic / Christian men and women in and outside the Church. It is a good thing to keep the discussion alive on this important topic, especially when it has lost its sensational aspects - because then the core of the problem appears clearer. ”- Tilburg, The Netherlands, November 19, 2005.