Political pundits say President Bush seems resigned to the fact that the world, in this generation, will not recognize the important mark he is making on civilizations survival by his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to confront terrorism. Determined and resolute, he apparently believes future generations and their historians will vindicate him and elevate him from the cellar of presidential ignominy.That attitude is not original. In fact, it is the basis for more than a few human movements that write off current generations but steadfastly lay the groundwork for a time when bigots and the unenlightened will be in their graves and out of the way as obstructionists.Of course, the cemeteries are full of idealists, activists, revolutionaries and people of courage who tried their hardest to bring about change, but ended up leaving their unfinished business for future generations.Many of us wont see the end to discrimination against women, gays, racial minorities, the aging, disabled and poor. But we watch history, and we see encouraging patterns that there is no stopping noble causes to eventually plow past tyranny, bigotry and powerful obstacles. I was heartened to read the words of Rosemary Ruether, the Carpenter professor of feminist theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. She recently wrote of Creativity at the Grass Roots: Women-Church Convergence models religious community. When Episcopal women were first ordained as clergy in 1974, it prompted Catholics to organized the first Womens Ordination Conference in Detroit the next year. Its goals would be both the ordination of women and the renewal of priestly ministry, defined as a more egalitarian and communal model of ministry. By the time a third conference was held in 1983 in Detroit, the Women-Church Convergence movement was born, calling for men and women to gather in communities for liturgy, study, reflection and social work in which all members participate as equals, with no separation of an ordained leader from the other members. A vast variety of Catholic feminist ministries and liturgical gatherings developed over the next 25 years, some of them connected to each other through the network called Women-Church Convergence, Ruether said. The question of womens ordination versus the community as a whole as celebrants of the Eucharist has reappeared in new form in Catholic feminist circles with the development of the Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement, she said. Seven Catholic priests were ordained in 2002 in Austria, and it has spread to other part of Europe, Canada and the United States, (www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org) and there are now 18 female priests. Some 250 people participated in a national meeting in mid-August in Chicago. Half were new to the movement and included a group of about 40 members of the Young Feminist Network, or Catholic women in their 20s and 30s who want the convergence to be attentive to issues facing younger women. Clearly, if one wants to know what is going on among Catholics, listening to the Vatican and national episcopacies is a small part of the story, said Ruether, a prolific writer whose first book in 1967 was titled The Church Against Itself. One needs to look at the grass roots, she said.There is astonishing creativity at the grass roots, she said. Indeed, the more the hierarchy of the Catholic Church appears in stasis or backward retreat, the more freewheeling the creative initiatives that pop up on the ground, she asserts.

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