High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Johannes Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards (born 1935, in Surabaya, Indonesia) is a spiritual author and controversial Catholic theologian. Since 1977 he has been associated with public but loyal opposition to the authorities of the Catholic Church for their refusal to confer holy orders on women. In 1998 he resigned from his priestly ministry in protest against Pope John Paul II’s decrees ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ and ‘Ad Tuendam Fidem’ which forbid further discussion of the women priests’ issue in the Catholic Church.