The Philadelphia Eleven on WXXI
Watch the film on Tuesday, March 18 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV
The film chronicles how a group of women in the Episcopal Church shared a call to become priests. After two legislative votes to make it possible for women to be ordained failed, they organized their own ordination as priests in defiance of church norms. Local connection: One of the 11 featured in the film is Merrill Bittner, who served in the Diocese of Rochester (1973- 1976) where she was an associate at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster, New York, and co-founder of the Rochester Women's Jail Project.