Transgender Woman’s Ministry Continued Long After She Left Priesthood

If you have not heard of Nancy Ledins, who passed away in July at age 84, her story is very much worth reading if you are concerned with Catholic LGBT issues.

Nancy saying benediction copy

Nancy Ledins leading worship

Ledins, then presenting as a man, was an ordained Roman Catholic priest for ten years. A member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, she left the priesthood in 1969 to get married to a former woman religious. Eventually the couple divorced around the time that Ledins transitioned in 1979.

In news accounts and profiles of Ledins after her transition, the perennial question of whether she was still a Catholic priest arose. Reporter John Dart of the Los Angeles Times explored this question in 1980. He wrote at the time, as reported by the Charlotte Observer this year:

“‘[Ledins] might be the first woman priest in Roman Catholic history in a technical sense. . .since she never sought to be returned officially to lay status, has never been summarily notified of such by the church and, by the usual understanding of church law, is still a priest – though not a legally functioning one.'”

The National Catholic Reporter’s (NCR) coverage agreed with this assessment, saying the first woman priest came about not through a bishop but through a surgeon. Incidentally, Ledins’ had her gender-confirming surgery on Holy Thursday when the church celebrates the institution of the priesthood.

Church officials never formally responded to Ledin’s situation, and Ledins has never challenged that silence. She told NCR that though technically ordained, “there is probably a canon somewhere that spells my demise as a priest” if she tried to celebrate the sacraments. Still, on the 55th anniversary of her ordination, Ledins prayed:

“‘Lord Father, my special thanks for the gift of ordination and ministry over the years. . .And thank you for letting me be here. Amen and amen. Alleluia.'”

nancy ledins la times_new.jpeg

1980 Los Angeles Times piece on Ledins

Beyond any canonical questions, the spiritual testimony Ledins offered about her journey is what is most impactful. She knew in childhood that she wanted to be like her sister, saying, “I didn’t know what to call it, but I felt it.” The stress led to depression for many years. The Observer reported that after Ledins’ transition, she “was shot at, had her car bombed and was sent dead animals in the mail.”

Nonetheless, she powerfully affirmed the decision to transition. In a 1978 letter to her parents, Ledins wrote:

“‘For the first time in my life, I am running into and not from. What a healthy feeling!. . .I am now very very glad to be alive. . .My bucket of tears (and there were many) are over. The sunshine is real.'”

Years later, Ledins finally returned to pastoral ministry leadership, serving at a North Carolina church that is affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. Half of the congregation’s members are LGBT people. Ledins’ passing in July led many people to share the pastoral experiences they had with her. Rev. Marsha Tegard said of Ledins:

“‘She was just so welcoming and just kind of embraced me as someone just starting out on my journey. . .She told me, “It’s OK to be you. God loves you. You have a place in the Kingdom.”. . .I believe Nancy blazed the trail for people like me.'”

Another member of the congregation, Maddison Wood, said hope was found “in the lines of Nancy’s face” because “she had lived – not just survived, but lived – to old age.”

Regardless of Nancy Ledins’ canonical status in the Roman Catholic church, she was a Christian minister leading people to God until her death. Judging from her fellow congregants’ accounts, it was precisely Ledins’ courage and authenticity that made her such an impactful minister. The comment she made about her transition is a true Resurrection message: “I am now very very glad to be alive. . .The sunshine is real.”

Robert Shine, New Ways Ministry, September 12, 2017

 

7 replies
  1. Terence Weldon
    Terence Weldon says:

    Yes, indeed she was able to continue ministry long after leaving the priesthood. The tragedy is that to do so, she had to leave the Catholic Church as well. It was the church’s rigid insistence on an all-male priesthood that forced her to leave in the first place.

    A similar story is that of Sall Gross, who at one time was not just a priest, but a Dominican lecturer in theology. Her story though is a little more complex: assigned as male at birth, it later turned out that she was in fact intersex, but internally more female than male, which led to a decision to transition – and inevitable exclusion from the priesthood. That then raises the troubling question for the Catholic Church and its rules on priests. If they must be male – by which criteria? External genitals only? Internal morphology? Hormones? Chromosomes?

    The simple existence of intersex people calls into serious doubt the Vatican’s entire system of sexual and gender ideology, based on a false and misguided system of simple binary opposites.

    See my post at Queering the Church, “How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology” http://queerchurch.com/?p=46443

    Reply
  2. Loretta
    Loretta says:

    I too thought the biological fact of intersex people would be sufficient to admit that sexuality, gender, orientation are far more complex than ancient assumptions. Incredible story.

    Reply
  3. colleenteresa
    colleenteresa says:

    Our poor, dear Church is still so conflicted on whether we transgender women are women at all, much less fully-fledged members of Christ’s body, the Church. Some Vatican folk have ginned up the idea of a “transgender ideology,” a straw man, a base canard, unworthy of rebuttal. We are a tiny fraction of the naturally occurring population do not fall into the strait-jacket male-femele dmininant idea. It’s that we who don’t fit that dominant pattern are just as much called to follow Christ, redeemed by Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection and feel the call to serve God’s people at the altar. Rev. Nancy Ledins was a priest of God till the day she died. There are few of us like her, but we are out here. We never will be more than a very few, because our physical condition is quite rare. God has never stopped loving us nor wanting us to serve as priests.

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] Related link: Transgender Woman’s Ministry Continued Long After She Left Priesthood (New Ways Ministry) ___ Top image credit: Nancy Ledins at baptism ceremony in 2016 (courtesy of […]

  2. […] Source: Transgender Woman’s Ministry Continued Long After She Left Priesthood – Bondings 2.0 […]

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *