Outspoken Priest Highlights Religious Panels at CGU

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest who has come under fire from the Church for advocating for the ordination of women, will take part in panel discussions Nov. 1 and 2 at Claremont Graduate University.

The discussions will focus on women's ordination in the Catholic Church and Father Bourgeois’ involvement in the School of the Americas Watch, graduate school officials wrote.

Panelists include Rosemary Radford Ruether, visiting professor of religion; Jane Via, of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests; and Gina Messina-Dysert, visiting assistant professor in the department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

The talk on women's ordination and the Catholic Church will be from 7 to 9 p.m. on Nov. 1 in Albrecht Auditorium, 925 N. Dartmouth Ave.

Bourgeois' discussion on the struggle for social justice in Latin America and the School of the Americas Watch will be from 1 to 3 p.m. on Nov. 2, also in Albrecht Auditorium.

Bourgeois, a longtime peace activist and Maryknoll priest, has come under pressure from the church for his "defiant stance" in support of women's ordination, university officials wrote.

According to a bio provided, Bourgeois served as a Naval officer for two years before entering the seminary of the Maryknoll Missionary Order. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1972, he went on to work with the poor of Bolivia for five years.

He emerged as an outspoken critic of US foreign policy in Latin America in 1980 after four US churchwomen were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. Since then, he has spent over four years in US federal prisons for nonviolent protests against the training of Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Ga.

He founded School of the Americas Watch in 1990. The organization advocates for the closure of the United States government's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas) at Ft. Benning.

Bourgeois' talks at CGU are free and open to the public.