“You have all the choices in the world”

When she was appointed in 2020, the Very Rev. Beth Bretzlaff was the first woman to be the Dean of the Diocese of Ottawa and Rector of Christ Church Cathedral. In an interview at the time, she shared some memories of her experiences and the atmosphere when she first considered becoming a priest. As the Anglican Church of Canada celebrates the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women as priests this month, the dean kindly gave us her permission to republish an excerpt from our 2020 iinterview:

“I was the first woman vicar/associate priest at the cathedral in Kelowna as well, so I’ve been through this before, but back then it was a much bigger deal than it is now,” she told Crosstalk [now Perspective] in an interview about the new role she stepped into in September. “I’ve met a couple of the young women of the choir and of the parish and they are thrilled. They’ve told me that. …I’ve been a woman priest for 27 years so I kind of forget about that side of it, but they don’t.”

It was also a much bigger deal when Bretzlaff first felt called to the priesthood when she was still very young. “My first thought of it was before they ordained women,” she said. But change came while she was still a teen, and it became a real option.

Others saw potential in her too. “My parish priest at the time sensed it in me, and also my parish of St. Paul’s in Shawville. People had actually said to me ‘Have you thought of being a priest?’” Her parish priest encouraged her to talk with Bishop Edwin Lackey before she started university. Her parents were very supportive. “My mom said, “I only had three choices, to be a nurse, a teacher or get married. You have all the choices in the world.”

And so it happened that she had her first meeting with Bishop Lackey when she had just turned 17. Since she was expressing interest in ordination, it was a formal interview with a panel of several men, which she recalls as terrifying. “One of the senior canons was not in favour of women, and I was in tears very quickly into the interview. Bishop Lackey said firmly to that person, ‘You will not ask any more questions. I will take over this interview.’ He was very good with me.”

Bishop Lackey also saw something in Bretzlaff and encouraged her. “Even when I ran away out West and tried to avoid it all, he pursued me.” But, she says, “He let me go and said, ‘It’s ok, you’ll be back one day’…. Unfortunately, Bishop Lackey died the year before I was ordained.” Now, as the dean and rector of the Cathedral, she walks through the Lackey Room each day when she goes to get a cup of coffee. “So every time when I come back through with my cup of coffee there is a picture of Bishop Lackey on the wall with a twinkle in his eye smiling at me. And every time I walk through the room it’s like he’s laughing and saying, ‘I told you that you would be back.’”

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