Mary Grace is rector of church in suburbs

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 16, 1996 by Tim Unsworth

Recently my wife, Jean, and I went to the local funeral parlor to bid farewell to the father of a friend. There we found three clerical collars hovering near the coffin, helping the widow and comforting mourners with voices as soft as a baby's behind. All three had been "priested," to use the Episcopal terminology, in recent years. Each wore a black tailored blazer and charcoal-gray skirt. All three were, God forbid, female.

The experience caused me to drive on another day to Flossmoor, Ill., a lacecurtain Chicago suburb, to visit the Church of St. John the Evangelist and meet its 41-year-old rector, the Rev. Mary Grace Williams. We talked over a meal of Chinese food, a strong preference of Williams' since she visited China in 1994 and brought back a 5-month-old baby girl who had been left on a busy street in the forbidden city of Wuhan.

Grace Elizabeth Li Williams only serves to enrich her mother's priesthood. She often rests in her vested mother's arms as she greets worshipers on Sunday. "I'd like to get married someday, but just now I'm too involved with St. John's and my daughter," said Williams, a former Roman Catholic.

Williams is one of only 20 to 25 ordained Episcopal women who have been named rectors across the United States, and the Church of St. John is a pastoral plum. Just 65 years old, the 800-member congregation called Williams to be its fourth rector after a nationwide search. An earlier rector at St. John's who had been ordained a bishop was opposed to female priests. A Chicago friend and fellow priest had advised her not to apply.

"But I hadn't really applied," she said. "I had simply filed my resume with a clearinghouse for all applicants and the search committee found me." In Episcopal tradition, parishioners issue the call and the local bishop approves -- a far cry from the Catholic practice, which can amount to a spoils system. The committee, after reviewing some 200 candidates, called her eight references and interviewed her for three days.

When her appointment was announced a year ago, one worshiper asked for her pledge card back (she has since become an ardent supporter); one family left the parish and a few others refused to accept communion from the new rector. But most accepted her with barely a glance up from their Books of Common Prayer. Williams dislikes titles and is trying to get her congregation to simply call her "Mary Grace." Some still address her as "Reverend" or "Pastor." She loosens their rubrical shackles by her quick wit and expressive manners. Asked by one nervous parishioner if she is a lesbian, she responded: "Well, I wasn't one yesterday and I'm not today. But I'm not certain about tomorrow." As for why she became a priest, she sometimes responds simply: "I look stunning in black."

The Episcopal church in the United States has allowed women priests since 1977. Today, about 10 percent of the church's priests are female, although many attest to being snubbed by male colleagues and only a handful have been named rectors.

Today, the church has only about 2.5 million members worldwide, about the same number as the Catholic church in Chicago. But it has 15,000 priests -- proportionately more than 22 times the number of priests Catholics have. The Episcopal diocese of Chicago, for example, has 330 priests to serve its 47,500 members, one priest for every 144 parishioners, compared to the Chicago archdiocese, where one priest serves an average of 2,200 parishioners. That difference is just one of the reasons Williams became an Episcopalian. "Catholic churches have gotten like filling stations," she said. "They have lost their personal touch."

With dwindling numbers and lower regular attendance, priests of both sexes in the Episcopal church find themselves serving smaller congregations. Membership has dropped 31 percent in the past 22 years. Still, it counts among its new members many women who, like Williams, have left the Roman church for a spiritual home in which they could realize a deeply felt calling.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., Williams completed her undergraduate work at Rutgers in 1976, leaving with a bachelor's degree in theater. During her late teens, she drifted away from the church but eventually found her way back through the Catholic chapel at New York University.

She completed her master's in religious education at Fordham University and was hired as director of religious education at St. Joseph's Parish in lower Manhattan. "But after a while, I began to feel that this wasn't enough," she said. "I loved the work but chafed under the restrictions Catholicism placed on me as a woman. I felt called to be a priest, and I felt trapped when I realized I couldn't be one."

In 1980, she entered the Divinity School of Yale University. "I matriculated with the intention of being ordained," she said. "I didn't know whether it would be as an Episcopal priest or a minister with the United Church of Christ." In 1984, after much soul-searching, she entered the Episcopal Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York.