Michele front left of Michele Odalisque by Judy Chappus, Artist
Michele Show by the Exhibitionist at Art Windsor Essex (AWE)
Windsor, Ontario, Canada (April 16 to Oct 25, 2026)
Michele Birch-Conery was born Margorie Ann Conery on Aug 3, 1939 in Vancouver, BC on the feast day of St. Lydia who made her living dyeing, spinning and selling rare, expensive purple cloth.
A visionary, mystic and social activist for women's equality in the Roman Catholic Church, Michele's life embodied threads of the sacred and profane. Her life spun around charisms of writing, storytelling, advocacy for women, prayer, service and teaching - a nurse, nun, university Women's Studies and English literature professor, musician, poet and, in her final years, an ordained bishop.
Michele was conceived in rape by Rose who was 13 years old. She went into foster care and later was adopted at age six. Her adopted parents taught her to play the violin and piano; however, they isolated her from peers and after school activities. The father sexually abused Michele until she was 12 years old when she reported the abuse to authorities. She was sent to boarding school under the care of women religious who were her teachers, protectors and mentors. There she flourished in academics, music and stirred up trouble and fun with her peers. In her early adult years, Michele became a nun with the religious order Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.
Until she died at 81 years of age and especially throughout her childhood, Michele was plagued with cyclic vomiting syndrome, an incapacitating aliment known as an abdominal migraine. She was constantly under the duress of financial stress, medical marginalization and mental health challenges, used alcohol to assuage the pain. Nonetheless, Michele's passion for life and resilience led her to embrace countless, spirit-filled adventures.
In her early forties, Michele reunited with her birth mother and lived with Rose and Rose's husband for several years. She never married or had children.
In 2004, decades after she left religious life, Michele was ordained as the first Canadian Roman Catholic priest, an elicit ordination made legal by the presence of one ordaining bishop in good standing with Rome. She moved to Windsor in 2014 and established the Heart of Compassion International Faith Community, along with several progressive Roman Catholic local women.
Michele was consecrated a bishop with the international Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARWCP) in 2015. Her devotion to this sacred calling was total. There were multiple, complex challenges and opportunities that animated her well-honed life experience and gifts, and drew upon her life of prayer and contemplation.
As a dual citizen, Michele was keenly political and a consummate diplomat. She cared deeply about the pastoral and personal development of women candidates in preparation for ordination, often hosting them for weekends in her upper apartment and talking with them deep into the early hours. Her love of liturgy and her creative use of language merged in worship celebrations that were inclusive, feminist, ecological and evolutionary. Michele also had a wild imagination and a robust sense of humour.
In 2019, and a year before she died, Michele modeled with the Exhibitionist. After several, severe bouts of cyclic vomiting syndrome and at 94 pounds, she gave her naked, withered flesh and bones to be rendered in images: one final act of justice to counter misogyny and patriarchy. Michele laid down the purple cloth of her ailing and aging body for women elders who are often deemed irrelevant and whose bodies are seen as disgusting.
Moved by her courage and life story, the Exhibitionists have captured Michele's power and beauty through their art-making and a recording of Michele reading two of her arresting poems, Exile and Reunion. The Michele Show is at Art Windsor Essex from April 16 to Oct 25, 2026 on the 3rd floor.
Free access to Michele's memoir, Birdwoman: Memoir of a Migrant Mystic is available at People's Catholic Seminary,
https://pcseminary.teachable.com/p/pcs-712-birdwoman-memoir-of-a-migrant-mystic
Written by Barbara Billey, close companion
