Disobedience on Trial

William Wendt is an Episcopal priest who has rarely flinched from trouble or feared innovation. His Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D.C., has become one of the most liberal Episcopal congregations in the nation, active in the affairs of its neighboring ghetto and experimental in its liturgy. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that after eleven women were ordained in Philadelphia last summer as the first female Episcopal priests, Wendt was the first to open his church to one of them--Australia-born Alison Cheek, who celebrated the Eucharist there last November. Not only had the church's bishops declared the women's ordinations invalid, but Wendt's own bishop, Washington's William Creighton, had issued a "godly admonition" against Wendt's allowing Cheek to celebrate the Eucharist. Last week, as a result of his initiative, Father Wendt found himself the defendant in a rare ecclesiastical trial.

To the 18 priests in the diocese who brought charges against Wendt, the issue is disobedience to the bishop. They fear incipient Congregationalism, in which each local church is autonomous. Wendt, however, hopes that his case "may go down in history as establishing that you can do what you believe to be right, even against the church's orders."

Wendt's defense was led by Lawyer and Lay Theologian William Stringfellow, who harbored Daniel Berrigan in 1970 when the Jesuit was a fugitive from the FBI. Stringfellow was interested in pursuing what he felt was a vindicating factor in Wendt's action--the validity of the women's ordinations. The national head of the church, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin, who was subpoenaed for the defense, refused to appear; as a result, at week's end he was cited for contempt by the five-judge ecclesiastical court. That left as the star witness his predecessor as presiding bishop, John Hines. When Stringfellow asked Hines his opinion of the ordinations, he replied: "I believe them to be valid but irregular." Hines, however, stated that a bishop can refuse to license an ordained minister to perform priestly functions.

The five judges will now have to decide whether Wendt is guilty. If convicted, he could face ouster from the ministry. His fate is in the hands of Bishop Creighton, who is more likely to issue a reprimand at most, since he did not favor the firing of charges in the first place. Actually, Creighton is so sympathetic to the women's cause that he is practicing discrimination in reverse. Last month he announced that he would henceforth refuse to ordain all males in his diocese until the Episcopal Church opened the priesthood to women.

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