Excommunicated playwright co-writes drama about abortion

Victoria Rue, an ordained Priest, has spent her life pushing for gender equality and advancing liberal theology

Not many women have been ordained as a Catholic priest, been excommunicated as a result, and then gone on to write a play that argues for abortion rights. But Victoria Rue isn’t like most women. She’s one-of-a-kind. 

Rue recently co-wrote a play called Voices from the Silenced: Pre-Roe Abortion Stories with Martha Boesing. The play has now been filmed and released as a movie.

Rue’s story and work fascinate because they seem to contain seeming contradictions, but upon closer examination, there’s a consistency to her life philosophy and experiences. She’s first and foremost a feminist, and that’s reflected in her theological and theatrical views. 

“When we tell the truth, when we tell our stories, things can change,” Rue said. “And that's where we are. So we're encouraging not only senior women to tell their stories, but we're also encouraging young women to listen to these stories and hopefully be heartened and feel that our hand hands are reaching out to them with support and understanding.” 

Rue and Boesing produced the play after interviewing several women about their experiences getting abortions before Roe. 

It has five sections. The first deals with shame and focuses on how women felt when discussing abortions they had before Roe. The second part deals with the decision itself, along with all the factors that a woman considers when deciding on an abortion. 

The third part is called The Abortion, and those are the stories of back-alley abortions, including those that happened in Tijuana, along with horror stories of botched procedures. 

The fourth section is grief. And the final section is resistance, which shows the success of women who’ve protested for abortion rights globally. 

The play is narrated by a character named Jane, who is an homage to the famous underground abortion service that operated in Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

(Victoria Rue)

While the play is timely, Rue’s life and activism are timelessly fascinating. Liberal theologians have criticized the Catholic Church for not ordaining women as priests. Rue, a lifelong Catholic, combined her devout belief, her studies at Union Theological Seminary, and her progressive views on gender to push for equality in the institution. Her activism included the decision to violate Vatican doctrine by being ordained as a priest. 

It’s interesting how that happened. A group of male bishops protested the doctrine by ordaining seven women on the Danube River in Europe. The pope excommunicated them. One of the women came to Rochester, New York. Rue met her and told her she had a calling to be a priest. 

Two of the seven women originally ordained as priests were later ordained as bishops. In Catholicism, bishops have to be involved in ordination. So, the rebellious male bishops decided to empower women to do it themselves. 

Rue was ordained as a priest on the St. Lawrence Seaway in 2000. She was soon excommunicated. 

Rue retired from the ministry several years ago after starting a community in San Francisco. 

During this whole experience, she remained committed to producing and teaching theater. 

“When I retired from that kind of ministry, I decided that the soul ministry I would have would be theatre at that point.” 

“Me making theatre knowing that it was my ministry, and then basically we come to the Dobbs decision.”

People who want to watch it can view it here.