Berkley Center

Monique: I was very devout. When I was in grade school, I loved going to church. I used to skip recess and go to the noon mass at our parish. And there was a priest there who noticed that I was very interested in the liturgy. And although this was in the 1960s and girls weren't allowed to be altar servers, he would let me serve mass, you might say, from the front pew when an altar boy wasn't there. So instead of ringing the bells, I would clap my hands and I would say the responses in Latin so that the mass would flow on. And I used to play mass. I used to take out my missal and pretend to be a priest.

Those three things are considered to be signs of a priestly vocation. And if I had been a boy, I would have been hustled into a minor seminary very quickly. But especially after my father died, I didn't really think about pursuing any type of religious vocation. He had just spent three tours of duty in Southeast Asia over the past three years and he had finally been assigned to a desk job and he was home for 10 days when he was killed in a B-52 training accident in Orlando, Florida. That still is the most devastating thing that's ever happened to me. I was 14 at the time.

And people were telling me, "Well, your father was so good, God needed him in heaven. God always gives the heaviest crosses to those He loves the most." And I thought, "If this is love, then I don't want any part of this God." And I really had a very hard time, but after a while I decided that no, practicing my faith was important to me. I finally got to attend my first Easter Triduum services, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter vigil. And at the Easter vigil, I just remembered this feeling of peace that came over me. It was just wonderful. And I really felt the presence of God for the very first time, and that I had made the right decision to remain Catholic and remained faithful.

And started having heretical thoughts about becoming a priest and then finally took the step. I was ordained a deacon in June of 2010, and I was ordained a priest in June of 2011. And I was automatically excommunicated, which was put out by the Vatican in 2008. And all women who consider themselves ordained are excommunicated. And then in 2010, they created the ordination of women was as serious a crime as priest pedophilia. Boy did that upset us, but I'm still here, very proud to call myself a Roman Catholic woman priest. And the God I have found outside of my original religion is a God of love. It's not someone who tallying up my mistakes. God is someone who loves me and loves me regardless of what I do, but I especially felt God's presence when I was ordained that this was what I was supposed to do.