Mormon church excommunicates prominent US activist Kate Kelly

Prominent Mormon activist Kate Kelly was excommunicated by her church on Monday for violating its "laws and order" after advocating for women's ordination.

Prominent Mormon activist Kate Kelly was excommunicated by her church on Monday for violating its "laws and order" after advocating for women's ordination, a view that leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said amounted to apostasy.

Kelly in 2013 founded the group Ordain Women, which has pushed for gender equality and has appealed to the faith's highest leaders to seek direction from God on the issue of women joining the priesthood.

A three-man panel held a church disciplinary hearing for her on Sunday in Virginia, where she lived until recently, and their verdict was delivered by email.

"Our determination is that you be excommunicated for conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church," Kelly's former ecclesiastical leader in Virginia, Bishop Mark Harrison, said in the message.

"These conditions almost always last at least one year," it said, adding that if she showed "true repentance" and gave up teachings and actions that "undermine the Church, its leaders, and the doctrine of the priesthood," she could be readmitted.

Kelly, a former Washington human rights attorney, said the decision forced her out of her community and congregation.

"Today is a tragic day for my family and me as we process the many ways this will impact us, both in this life and in the eternities," she said in a statement.

Kelly is about to move overseas and did not attend the hearing, sometimes called a church court. Instead she wrote a letter defending herself and asking to keep her membership.

She has said she continues to believe in Mormon leaders and has suffered no crisis of faith, but rather has sincere questions about policies that bar women from the priesthood.

The Ordain Women group say they are steadfast in their faith but want a more significant role in the life of the Utah-based church that claims more than 15 million adherents worldwide.

Men ordained to the lay priesthood can perform religious rituals, including baptisms, confirmations or blessings. Women may only hold leadership roles in auxiliary organizations.

"Feminists might go underground for a generation as we've seen in the past, but their questions aren't going to go away," said Mary Ellen Robertson, who runs the Sunstone Symposium, a forum on Mormon culture and scholarship.

The church has accused some members of "actively teaching and publicly attempting to change doctrine" due to their personal beliefs, and it says Mormon leaders have a duty to defend the church's fundamental principles.

Kelly's parents Jim and Donna have also suffered for publicly supporting her activism, being removed from volunteer jobs in their Provo, Utah congregation and banned from entering Mormon temples.

Jim Kelly, a former bishop who has participated in disciplinary hearings, said the family was reeling but that the ruling would not undermine his daughter's faith.

"The people who took this action ... have control over a building," he said in an interview. "They do not have control over her relationship with the Savior. There are no doors that they can control for that." (Reporting by Jennifer Dobner; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Will Dunham)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Mormon church excommunicates prominent US activist Kate Kelly
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0623/Mormon-church-excommunicates-prominent-US-activist-Kate-Kelly
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe