Diane Smith Whalen, the subject of this short documentary, raised two children in her local Roman Catholic parish where she and her husband forged many friendships. Yet for many years Whalen felt an urgency to become a Roman Catholic priest, going against her faith that only allows male priests.
As the call to priesthood became stronger, Whalen joined Roman Catholic Women Priests, “an international movement that ordains women as priests in a renewed, more inclusive vision of the church” and in 2010 she was ordained as the first woman priest in Washington state. As a result, the Vatican sees her and other female priests as heretics stripped of all religious rites.
In much of this program, the soft-spoken articulate woman speaks to the camera expressing her feelings about the church and her reasons for wanting to join the priesthood. Other footage shows her at home with her husband, walking outdoors, engaging in rallies, or in an unnamed church where she wears vestments and presides over congregants. Because of the seven-minute time frame, the program merely scratches the surface of Whalen’s situation and Roman Catholic doctrine.
Nevertheless, this is a quick way to introduce a complex topic in college classrooms and other group settings to elicit discussions about women’s roles, religious beliefs, commitment, and dissent. Recommended for documentary and religious shelves in academic libraries.