Catholic nuns were major participants in the first and second meetings of the Women's Ordination Conference.

Many U.S. Catholics Agree "I think it's wonderful," said Ruth Fitzpatrick, national coordinator of the Women's Ordination Conference.

She and her three colleagues belong to the Women's Ordination Conference, an organization seeking to gain women the right to be ordained as priests.

"The Women's Ordination Conference," the invitation reads, "cordially invites you not to attend the First Annual Non-Ordination."

After 15 years years of angry protests against the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to allow women to serve as priests, the Women's Ordination Conference has turned to humor.

Fiedler attended the first Women's Ordination Conference in Detroit in 1975.

The Women's Ordination Conference is the oldest and largest national organization that works to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops into the Roman Catholic Church.

In November 1995 the Women's Ordination Conference will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a convention in the nation's capital.

Ruth Fitzpatrick, the national coordinator of the Women's Ordination Conference, said: "The bishops capitulated to Rome and the result is a more compassionate, yet more conservative, document."

In late November 1975, Tuite was among the key organizers of the first International Women's Ordination Conference (WOC).