The Philadelphia Eleven: Irregular Ordinations and Ecclesiastical Authority

Part of The Case for the Historic Male Priesthood: Scripture, Tradition, and Anglican Order.

Introduction and scope

The Philadelphia Eleven were women deacons who participated in a service intended to ordain them to the priesthood at the Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, on 29 July 1974. The event preceded the Episcopal Church’s 1976 enactment making its ordination canons equally applicable to women and men. It raised questions about episcopal power, diocesan jurisdiction, canonical prerequisites, and the Church’s intention in ordination.

The resulting judgments changed over time and must be dated. Presiding Bishop John Allin initially described the acts as irregular and potentially invalid; the House of Bishops subsequently declared them invalid; the 1976 proceedings provided routes for completion after the canonical change. These descriptions should neither be collapsed into a single permanent verdict nor rewritten as though the original acts had received ordinary authorization.

This article distinguishes institutional judgments from the theological position of churches which continued to reject women’s priestly ordination. Its primary question is what the applicable rules and Episcopal authorities said at each stage.

The rules in force in 1974

The relevant edition is the Constitution and Canons adopted through the 1973 General Convention. Constitution Article II.3 restricted episcopal activity outside a bishop’s own jurisdiction to specified authorization. Canon III.9.2 required notice that canonical requirements had been fulfilled before an ordination was appointed. Canon III.11.3 required the candidate’s diocesan standing committee recommendation; subsequent sections specified supporting certificates and episcopal action.

Canon III.26 expressly admitted women to the diaconate and distinguished provisions relating to the priesthood. The contemporary framework cannot therefore be reconstructed from a general impression that all ordination language was already undifferentiated. Nor should a modern edition’s canon numbers be substituted for those in force then.

A separate question concerns whether the law contained a sentence explicitly forbidding women priests. The Episcopal Church’s later news account says it did not. Absence of such a sentence and compliance with the applicable authorization and testimonial requirements are different propositions. Even a successful argument about sex eligibility would not automatically supply missing jurisdiction or certificates.

The service and the participating bishops

The contemporary July report identifies Daniel Corrigan, formerly suffragan of Colorado; Robert DeWitt, resigned bishop of Pennsylvania; and Edward Welles, retired bishop of West Missouri, as the officiating bishops. Antonio Ramos of Costa Rica also participated. The report distinguishes Ramos’s participation from the actual ordination; the August account states that he did not join the episcopal segments.

Their episcopal status was not the same as authority to ordain these candidates in that place. Episcopal consecration and current jurisdiction are distinct. Possessing the former did not dispense with the canonical conditions governing the latter.

The same distinction limits a popular sacramental argument. The presence of bishops, candidates, prayer, and laying on of hands establishes important features of the rite. Whether those features alone suffice for an ordination, independently of the Church’s authorization and intention, is the theological issue rather than an uncontested premise.

Supporters’ claims and opponents’ objections

Supporters appealed to vocation, equality, and obedience to the Gospel over discriminatory human restrictions. Ramos characterized the act as ecclesiastical disobedience directed against a discriminatory system; preacher Charles Willie compared the issue with resistance to unjust racial laws. Those are documented public arguments, not inferred private motives.

Their challenge had both moral and ecclesiological dimensions. If an institution unjustly prevents recognition of a divine vocation, supporters argued, waiting upon its legislative timetable can itself perpetuate injustice. This is a substantial claim about the relation between conscience, reform, and law, even where one rejects its application.

Opponents argued that the participating bishops could not privately supply the authorization of the Church. Protesters at the service appealed to ecclesiastical unity and proper legislative channels. Allin stated that the bishops had exceeded their authority and acted contrary to the Constitution and Canons.

The traditionalist response is not adequately expressed by saying that authority always defeats conscience. Its stronger form holds that the ministry is a public trust which cannot be constituted by an individual’s conviction alone. Conversely, an institutional rule’s existence does not prove its theological truth. The conflict required judgment about both the rule and the means of changing it.

The initial institutional judgment

The 31 July account reported Allin’s distinction between irregularity and possible invalidity. His statement was not yet identical to the later House judgment. It also distinguished the authority of diocesan bishops over the women from the Presiding Bishop’s own authority. A chronology should preserve that qualified initial wording.

On 15 August 1974 the House of Bishops declared the ceremony invalid by 129 votes to nine, with eight abstentions. The contemporary report connected the judgment with absent authorization and prescribed diocesan certifications. It also recorded the participating bishops’ appeal to a higher obedience and the women’s challenge to the House’s authority to make the determination.

The source describes an institutional decision with a theological rationale, not merely an informal expression of displeasure. It does not require the historian to endorse that rationale. Nor does it establish that every bishop voting for the judgment opposed women’s ordination in principle. A person could favour changing eligibility while rejecting this particular procedure.

The report also recalled that the 1973 House of Deputies had rejected the proposal concerning women’s priestly eligibility. A favourable view within one house or a prior straw vote did not itself enact a change in the Church’s law.

Censure and continued controversy in 1975

At its September 1975 meeting, the House censured Corrigan, DeWitt, and Welles for the unauthorized Philadelphia service. It also deplored the subsequent Washington service, conducted on 7 September 1975, while distinguishing the handling of its officiant, George Barrett. The contemporary account expressly reports debate about invalidity, irregularity, and collegiality.

Censure should not be described as deposition or a completed trial conviction. Those are distinct disciplinary outcomes. Likewise, the fact that discussion continued does not erase the earlier judgment. The historical task is to identify what was actually decided rather than treating every expression of controversy as a change in legal status.

The 1976 canonical change

Resolution 1976-B005 added a new section to Canon III.9, making the admission and ordination provisions for all three orders equally applicable to women and men. The archival legislative record identifies concurrence and cites the final text at Journal page C-52.

The record also preserves an unsuccessful proposal to proceed through constitutional amendment instead. This is important evidence that the appropriate legislative route was itself debated; one should not substitute the defeated route for the enactment actually adopted. The new provision took effect on 1 January 1977, as the Church’s retrospective account records.

A change of prospective eligibility did not automatically answer what to do about earlier rites. The two questions were addressed separately. Treating the amendment as though it retroactively supplied every missing condition would obscure the subsequent theological and pastoral proceedings.

Completion, conditional ordination, and recognition

The House adopted a theological report preserved in the archive under 1976-B300. It held that, following the newly stated ecclesial intention, completion of the earlier acts became possible, provided canonical procedures were fulfilled. It offered a public diocesan act of completion without additional laying on of hands, or conditional ordination. The legislative history records restriction to one option, protest, and eventual adoption of the original report without that amendment.

The archive identifies this as a “Mind of the House” report. Its catalogue identifier should not be mistaken for proof that it originated as a numbered bicameral legislative enactment. Its authority and purpose differ from the canonical amendment.

“Conditional ordination” also should not be casually equated with an unqualified second ordination. Its purpose was to address uncertainty and provide assurance without requiring everyone to agree about precisely what had occurred earlier. “Completion” expressed the report’s different proposed means of incorporating the earlier sacramental elements into the Church’s authorized act.

The Church’s later archival account describes the canonical change and the completion arrangements as separate stages in the women’s reception into authorized priestly ministry. This article does not claim to have inspected each woman’s individual diocesan regularization record.

Traditionalist assessment and precise terminology

For traditionalists, Philadelphia illustrates the danger of treating personal episcopal conviction as sufficient to alter a received ministry. The procedural objections were substantial even apart from the sex question. Yet an accurate account must also acknowledge the Episcopal Church’s subsequent authorization and reception rather than continuing to describe its current position solely through the August 1974 judgment.

Canonical illegality concerns compliance with law; irregularity identifies departure from an applicable norm; invalidity concerns whether the claimed order was conferred; recognition concerns a receiving church’s judgment. “Illicit” likewise requires an identified legal or ecclesiastical standard. These words cannot be exchanged without changing the proposition.

The Episcopal Church’s settlement governs its own institutional reception. It does not compel churches retaining a male priesthood to accept the underlying theology. Those churches may reject women’s priestly eligibility and sacramental claims for reasons that remain after procedural defects are addressed. Their judgment must be attributed and supported separately; it should not be misrepresented as the Episcopal Church’s unchanged official conclusion.

Related articles

• Can One Province Change the Ministry of the Universal Church?
• Reception, Consensus, and the Burden of Proof
• Feminism and the Movement for Women’s Ordination
• Women’s Ordination and Anglican Sacramental Communion

Further reading

• The 1973 Constitution and Canons, the contemporary reports, and the complete B005 and B300 records cited above.
• Individual diocesan records remain necessary for a person-by-person account of regularization.