Last week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated Kate Kelly for leading a movement to open up the church's male-only priesthood to Mormon women. Kelly received word of her excommunication via email from her bishop, Mark Harrison, of her LDS stake in northern Virginia. Convicted of apostasy, Kelly read in the email that she had been excommunicated "for conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church." Although she may still attend LDS services, Kelly will not be able to take the sacrament, hold church positions, speak or pray in church, wear sacred LDS undergarments, contribute tithes, or vote for church offices. If Kelly hopes to be readmitted to the church, she must "demonstrate over a period of time that you have stopped teachings and actions that undermine the Church, its leaders, and the doctrine of the priesthood... and you must stop trying to gain a following for yourself or your cause and taking actions that could lead others away from the Church," Harrsion's email advised.
It is unlikely Kelly will meet those restrictions. Kelly, 33, created her organization, Ordain Women, in 2013 and quickly became a focus of controversy for the LDS Church after she attempted to lead hundreds of Mormon women into the all-male priesthood session of the church's semiannual General Conference meeting in October 2013 and again this past April. In anticipation of the second attempt and in response to their general demands for the priesthood, the LDS Church told Kelly and other Ordain Women leaders in March that they stood outside the consensus of Mormon women. "Women in the church, by a very large majority," an LDS spokesperson informed them, "do not share your advocacy for priesthood ordination for women and consider that position to be extreme."
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