Catholic Transgender Woman’s Life was Celebrated Sunday at Her Diverse Church

By Elisa Meyer --
24 Jul 2017 --

The Vatican ordered her baptismal records to remain unchanged

Charlotte's Wedgewood Church celebrated the life of Nancy Ledins, who was born William Griglak in 1932 and was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic church in 1959. William Griglak underwent a change of sex surgical procedure in 1979. Ledins continued to be a member of Wedgwood congregation until her death. She was 84 years old.

Catholic Transgender Woman’s Life was Celebrated Sunday at Her Diverse Church[/tweetthis]

The Wedgwood Church describes itself as a collection of disparate people trying to follow Jesus' path. It describes the plan as an inward or outward journey, on a road of humility. The church is a social justice oriented one, with no prejudice towards interracial and LGBT people. Wedgwood claims to be an ancient church with a progressive and modern outlook. The diversity is inclusive of humanist spirituality, intellectual spirituality, the spirituality of simplicity, activist spirituality, Buddhist spirituality, and labyrinth spirituality among a number of other obscure spiritualities.

Wedgewood Church is a United Church of Christ, with the congregation made up of Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Muslims, among other different traditions.

Ledins’ life cannot be described as an easy one. After news of her sex change operation became known, bigots mailed dead animals to her, shot at her and her car was even bombed.

As per a timeline publicized by Wedgwood Church, Nancy Ledins was born and brought up as William Griglak in Cleveland, Ohio. Soon after Griglak was ordained as a priest, he was sent to work with the Catholic religious order Missionaries of the Precious Blood. His first assignment was to serve the Lord in a Detroit Parish. He then served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army chaplain. Post-Vietnam war saw him working as a psychologist and pastor in Colorado.

Even among all these accolades, Griglak wanted to be himself. He took the all-important step in 1969. He resigned from being a Catholic priest and got married to a woman who was once a nun. The couple divorced so he could get the sex change operation done. A surgeon in Trinidad, Colorado performed the operation.

People in Charlotte are remembering Rev. Nancy Ledins, the first transgender Roman Catholic priest. @SpecNewsCLT pic.twitter.com/0POtNlwCQY
— Reuben Jones (@ReubenJones1) July 23, 2017

The consequences were almost instantaneous. Newspapers ran saucy headlines and a few even wondered about the church's position in this context. In 2003, the Vatican sent a confidential message to its North American bishops banning them from changing the sex listed in the parish baptismal records. Therefore, Ledins’ gender continued to read “male” on her baptismal record.

However, Ledins found peace and an end to her depression when she came out as transgender. In the last five years of her life, she was an active member at Wedgewood Church.