Roy Bourgeois

Roy Bourgeois

Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and subject of Disturbing the Peace (2004) from Orbis Books, was a Maryknoll priest for more than 40 years. In November 2012, Bourgeois was expelled from his order and excommunicated from the Catholic Church because he refused to recant his public support for women's ordination. Bourgeois self-published a memoir, Male Supremacy in the Catholic Church: An Insider's View, in 2022. 

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Then Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, third from left, marches down Via della Conciliazione toward the Vatican during a demonstration calling for women's ordination in Rome Oct. 17, 2011. In 2012, he was expelled from the priesthood and the Maryknoll community because of his public support for women's ordination. (CNS/Paul Haring)

I was a priest expelled for publicly supporting women's ordination. I still believe it is our only future.

After 40 years in the priesthood, Roy Bourgeois was expelled for publicly supporting the ordination of women in 2012. He believes now that if the church does not disband the all-male priesthood, it will die. 

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