THE REV. ALLA BOZARTH, 47
NOW: A poet and director of Wisdom House, a center for spirituality and healing, in Sandy, Ore.
SAID THEN: ". . . The greatest implication of this matter is not just the issue of priesthood, but the theology of woman itself . . . Are we full persons and can we be full Christians? If we can't, the church is saying something rather deadly about women."
THE REV. ALISON CHEEK, 47
NOW: Director of Feminist Liberation Theology Studies at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.
SAID THEN: "I have a lot of turmoil and grief around my decision. I'm not very brave and don't look forward to the hatred I'll evoke. At the same time, I go with joy at having come of age."
THE REV. MARIE MOOREFIELD FLEISCHER, 50
THEN: After the ordination, for fear of being defrocked, became a United Methodist minister.
NOW: Back in the Episcopal Church as deputy for ministry, Diocese of Western New York, Buffalo. This spring issued a statement declining to comment on the events of July 1974 except to say she has "deep respect for those women who have continued the public struggles related to the ministry of ordained women in the Episcopal Church."
THE REV. EMILY C. HEWITT, 49
NOW: A Harvard Law graduate serving as general counsel to the General Services Administration in Washington.
ON WHY SHE AND SEVERAL OTHERS OF THE ELEVEN NEVER BECAME ACTIVE PRIESTS: ''There is enough uneasiness for at least the next 20 years with the dislocations that were caused by the moving forward in Philadelphia that we didn't end up having a very comfortable place in church life."
ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHURCH CONTINUING TO ALLOW LOCAL BISHOPS TO DECLINE TO ORDAIN WOMEN: "Can you imagine the right to dissent on black people? It shows we have a way to go here. Let's get a grip. This is not over."
THE REV. CARTER HEYWARD, 48
TODAY: Author and professor of theology at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge. Twenty years ago, her own father said she and her fellow priestly aspirants were crazy.
SAID THEN: "I don't want to be despised, but that doesn't bother me . . . I believe history will vindicate us. They might call us all the names in the world, but that's better than being invisible."
THE REV. SUZANNE RADLEY HIATT, 57
THEN: "The Bishop" of the Philadelphia Eleven, the communicant at the Church of the Advocate who brought about the ordination. The first organizational meeting setting the ordination in motion took place at her Mount Airy home.
NOW: Professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge. She will preach at the Church of the Advocate Sunday in a homecoming service.
ON THE MEANING OF THE ORDINATION: "We hit a nerve that even we didn't know was there, a feeling among women that finally they were being heard."
HOW THE ORDINATION CHANGED THE CHURCH: "I see enormous changes. The laity have much more voice than 20 years ago, and certainly women do. Churches are more democratically organized. The clergyman is not the little father figure (anymore)."
THE RESISTANCE SHE SEES TO WOMEN'S CONCERNS: "That God is (still portrayed only) as father; that the whole system need not be so hierarchical. Issues of family violence, homosexuality, the rigid categorizing of people in regard to whether they are or are not male."
ON POPE JOHN PAUL II'S RECENT PROHIBITION OF FEMALE CATHOLIC PRIESTS: ''What's interesting is they (no longer) try to justify it theologically. The argument has changed to, 'We're not going to do it because I say so.' "
THE REV. JEANETTE PICCARD
THEN: A high-altitude balloonist and NASA consultant whose childhood dream was to be a priest. Age 79 at her ordination, former parish secretary to one of the priests who ordained the 11, she died in 1981, having realized her
dream as an assistant pastor in Minneapolis. Her two grown sons had to be
physically restrained when, during the ordination service, a priest rose to object that Piccard was too old to enter the priesthood.
SAID THEN: "It's just a question of whether women are saved by grace. Did our Lord live and be crucified for women too, or are we redeemed only by childbirth? If we are redeemed by childbirth, then we aren't redeemed at all. I think those who are opposed to ordination of women are heretical."
THE REV. BETTY BONE SCHIESS, 71
TODAY: Retired parish priest serving on a New York governor's task force on bioethical issues. Also writes and lectures on feminist issues.
ON THE ORDINATION: "I think we made a big difference. I think we shook the church up. There are now women ordained around the world where there had been none."
ON THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN REGARD TO WOMEN TODAY: "I don't see that the Episcopal Church is doing more than treading water (in regard to feminist concerns) . . . The best thing that could happen is all priests and bishops would say, 'Enough of this hierarchy. We resign and everyone is his or her own priest.' "
ON THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN REGARD TO HER: "For me to turn away and go away would make them so happy. But I'm too mean to do that. At 71, I have nothing to lose."
THE REV. KATRINA SWANSON, 59
THEN: Her father was one of the three priests who defied the church to ordain the Eleven. Her husband, an Episcopal rector, also took part in the service.
NOW: Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, Union City, N.J.
SAID THEN: "My father and grandfather used to say ordination and marriage are things you should not bother with unless you cannot live without them. That's why I'm doing this."
