From the history of ISSUES

October 8, 1973, Louisville

It is therefore in the sacramental heart of the living body of Christ that we as women must stand and insist that we be fully included. What is at stake here is more than ordination, it is the claim of women that our humanity IS sacramentally expressed in the body and blood of our Lord. The repudiation of ordination to the priesthood for women says to us that not only are women not fully susceptible to the movement of the Holy Spirit, but also that we are somehow deficient in our basic sacramental capacity… that Christ did not take on full female humanity as well as full male humanity… and therefore at some deep and painfully real level we are excluded from that sacramental heart of the community through which we ultimately experience the freely given grace of God. We believe this cannot be. We absolutely deny the ability of any convention or Church governing body to make it so.  We believe God intends women to function in every aspect of Church life, and most assuredly in its sacramental life.

- Concerned Laywomen of the Episcopal Church