Documentary Screening to Celebrate Women in Church Leadership
All Saints Episcopal Church is streaming the documentary “The Philadelphia Eleven” to celebrate Women’s History Month and diversity in the church.
The documentary discusses a group of 11 women who, in 1974, became ordained Episcopal priests despite the pushback and challenges. At the time, this was a violation of the constitution and rules of the Episcopal Church.
“We want to show it and invite the public to learn about how churches and the patriarchy, inherent and organized churches, in our denomination kept women from exercising authority and leadership for hundreds of years and how that stained glass ceiling got broken,” the Rev. Kit Carlson of All Saints said. “These women are the reason I can do my job and be a legally ordained person.”

The streaming and a guided discussion following the documentary will be held on Sunday, March 3 at 4 p.m. at the Hannah Community Center. The streaming is free and open to the public.
“When I was young, in the early ‘70s, my priest told me I could not even be an acolyte because it might give me the idea I might want to be ordained if I go that close to the altar, and I might think I should be a priest,” Carlson said. “So, I’m really looking forward to seeing these women who made my whole vocation possible.”
Carlson was ordained in 2000 and began her tenure at All Saints in February, 2007. She came to East Lansing from the Church of the Ascension in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
“When I got ordained in 2000, women clergy were present, but a lot of them weren’t senior pastors and things,” Carlson said. “But I served under a man who was very clear that they wanted me to be a leader in the church and that they were going to help me do whatever they could to get me into those positions of leadership.”

A guided discussion will follow the documentary, in which a panel of three female priests will discuss their experiences as women coming into leadership in the church.
The Rev. Jannel Glennie, the Rev. Karen Lewis and the Rev. Krista Heuett will be those sharing their stories and answering questions from the audience.
Carlson expressed the importance of having a wide variety of different people serving in the church.
“Whenever there’s a diverse group of people serving at the altar- men, women, we have a trans clergy in our denomination, we have queer and straight clergy in our denomination, we have Latino and Black and Asian and all different kinds of ethnicities in our denomination- the more diversity you have serving in the church, the more you reflect the way God created humanity to be,” Carlson said. “God didn’t create just men and women. God didn’t create just white people. There’s a whole world of people out there and the more you diversify your leadership, the more it looks like how God created humanity.”