Article: A joyful ordination breaks the rules; Anita Hill became a minister, going against the ELCA policy that lesbian clergy be celibate.(NEWS)

With the national Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) watching, Anita Hill was ordained Saturday in a unique service by more than 1,000 people who crowded into the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul.

Hill has satisfied all the requirements for ordination into the ELCA, but she is also a lesbian who has not vowed celibacy and therefore cannot be ordained by the church under its current rules.

Her congregation, St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, just down the street from Redeemer, decided to call her and ordain her outside the rules of the national church. Redeemer offered its sanctuary, which is larger than Reformation's.

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