A report by Ann Rodgers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the "ordination" of eight women:
On a riverboat cruising the confluence of Pittsburgh's three rivers yesterday, eight women held hands triumphantly and danced with three others they call bishops, as one of the latter proclaimed: "It is with great joy we present to you our newly ordained women priests."
Firstly, according to canon law Mass cannot be said aboard a boat without permission of the Holy See. Secondly, the ordinary minister of holy orders is a validly consecrated bishop who is in communion with the Holy See. Thirdly, the matter of the sacrament is the imposition of the hands by the aforementioned bishop.
More than 350 invited guests burst into applause and cheers for eight priests and four deacons of the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests. But the Catholic Church, which the women claim to have been ordained for, says they have excommunicated themselves through their actions. This is the fourth such group ordained worldwide since 2002, and the first in the U.S. The women came from across the nation. All have been held on boats, because they are a traditional symbol of the church.
The fact these women are prepared to accept only those parts of tradition which they can exploit, such as the symbolism of a boat, while rejecting more important parts of tradition, such as the priesthood being a continuation of both Christ's and the Apostle's mission, demonstrates they have clearly been influenced by Protestantism.
The ceremony followed the form of the Catholic rite, but with changes in ritual and language. Dagmar Celeste, a former first lady of Ohio who was among the group's first ordinands in 2002, said, "Today we give honor to our mother God ... Just as the water broke in the wombs of our mother, so we open the waters of mother church."
Unauthorised changes to the ritual and language would invalidate both the Mass and the ordination. Further the women have adopted what is clearly a pagan or pantheistic position.
In the most traditional part, the candidates -- most of whom are grandmothers or old enough to be so -- prostrated themselves on the floor before a makeshift altar. The congregation chanted a litany of saints with many traditional names, but also those of non-Catholics, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and whose lives also challenged Catholic teaching, such as Harvey Milk, a gay San Francisco city councilman who was shot to death in 1978.
More unauthorised changes to the ritual and language with the additional offence of promoting homosexuality.
But at the prayer of consecration, they offered their first Eucharist, "together with Benedict, our pope, and with all our bishops, men and women."
The number of unauthorised and therefore sacriligious changes keeps mounting, to which they have added hypocrisy by invoking the name of the Holy Father.
The Catholic Church teaches that only males can be ordained because the 12 apostles were male. It holds that ordination is handed down by a chain of bishops that can be traced back to those 12 apostles. Roman Catholic Womenpriests claims that its bishops are valid -- though illegal under church law -- because their bishops say they were secretly ordained by an active bishop in Europe, or by a man who was ordained by a former legitimate Argentinian bishop who left his office and married.
The bishops who perfomed the consecrations have committed a real sacrilege and invalidated the sacrament.
The Catholic Church does not accept those arguments. In 2003 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- upheld the excommunications of the first group after they appealed their bishop's declaration to the Vatican. Rome leaves it up to local dioceses to issue statements about the group.
If the women have been excommunicated they may neither administer nor receive sacraments, have no share in the prayers of the Church and cannot exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
"This is a sad moment for us. It has fostered even greater disunity in the church than what existed before this day began. We pray for reconciliation we pray for unity," said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. "Either you accept the teaching of the church or you don't. If you don't in the public manner in which they have done today, then they are choosing to separate themselves from the church, even though they say they are not doing so."
So could we add schism to the list of offences which thee women have committed.
Joan Houk, 66, of McCandless, who was declared a priest, said she would abide by the church's most basic restriction, and not go forward for communion in her parish. "I will remain in my pew and pray for all of those others who also cannot receive communion," she said.
What is the point of going through this whole episode of being ordained a priest if you are simply going to sit in the pews. Further what will it avail you when you have committed grave sins and therefore will not be fulfilling you obligation hear Mass.
Her master of divinity degree would easily enable her to be ordained an Episcopal priest. But she chose Roman Catholic Womenpriests "because I'm Catholic," she said. She knows that she will never be able to officially serve the Roman Catholic Church in any paid or volunteer capacity. But she said she considers her ordination more than a symbolic gesture, because she believes God will recognize it even if the church does not.
The Catholic Church is the body and bride of Christ, mystical yet visible, and given authority to act in His name and person. If the Catholic Church does not recognise their ordinations, then what makes her think God will.
"The church is looking at it as if I am putting myself outside the church. I don't see it that way," she said. "What I hope to do is connect with people who are Catholic who have walked away or are not participating, and convince them to become active in the church again and to belong to a parish, and to use their voice to let their pastors know what is of concern to them," she said.
Does she not realise that you don't need to be a priest to do this. Since Vatican II the laity have been empowered to bring the presence of Christ into the world and to draw souls to him.
Several liberal Catholics offered support for yesterday's ritual. But not all advocates of women's ordination are convinced it's the way to proceed. Phyllis Zagano, a senior research associate at Hofstra University on Long Island is a Catholic theologian who advocates the ordination of women to the diaconate, because that discussion is still permitted in the church.
The question of women's ordination to the diaconate is a seperate matter although tradition again has not been in favour.
The riverboat movement "raises the issue and makes more people discuss it," she said. But she is concerned that some of the women wouldn't qualify if they were male because of their theology or lifestyle.
Yet another sacrilege and sin to be confessed to a validly ordained, male priest when they get over this phase in their lives.
"From what I have read of their biographies, some of the women are not much interested in much of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. So there is a conundrum there. How can you be ordained to serve a community of believers if you don't agree with them?" she said.
Yes, how can you serve those with whom you are not in communion?
For a variety of reasons, including the fact that none of the women's diocesan bishops gave permission for their ordination, "there is no chance of the Catholic Church accepting the orders," she said.
That raises the question as to whether these women will only be able to exercise their ministry onboard boats, like that floating abortion ship in Europe.
Patricia Fresen, a bishop in Roman Catholic Womenpriests, compared their movement to the anti-apartheid movement. "I am utterly convinced that our ordinations are totally valid," she said. "Although they break [canon] law, we believe we are breaking an unjust law. I come from South Africa. We learned from Nelson Mandela and others that if a law is unjust, it must be changed. ... If you cannot change it, you must break it."
I suppose this another case of the sexual apartheid which advocates for same-sex marriage were claiming after the English High Court didn't recognise the "marriage" of two lesbians in Canada and forms part of the wider Freudian obsession with reducing everything to the purely sexual. If not, then it is certainly another attack on the common good for which the sacraments of holy orders and matrimony exist, namely the governence and growth of the Church.
On a riverboat cruising the confluence of Pittsburgh's three rivers yesterday, eight women held hands triumphantly and danced with three others they call bishops, as one of the latter proclaimed: "It is with great joy we present to you our newly ordained women priests."
Firstly, according to canon law Mass cannot be said aboard a boat without permission of the Holy See. Secondly, the ordinary minister of holy orders is a validly consecrated bishop who is in communion with the Holy See. Thirdly, the matter of the sacrament is the imposition of the hands by the aforementioned bishop.
More than 350 invited guests burst into applause and cheers for eight priests and four deacons of the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests. But the Catholic Church, which the women claim to have been ordained for, says they have excommunicated themselves through their actions. This is the fourth such group ordained worldwide since 2002, and the first in the U.S. The women came from across the nation. All have been held on boats, because they are a traditional symbol of the church.
The fact these women are prepared to accept only those parts of tradition which they can exploit, such as the symbolism of a boat, while rejecting more important parts of tradition, such as the priesthood being a continuation of both Christ's and the Apostle's mission, demonstrates they have clearly been influenced by Protestantism.
The ceremony followed the form of the Catholic rite, but with changes in ritual and language. Dagmar Celeste, a former first lady of Ohio who was among the group's first ordinands in 2002, said, "Today we give honor to our mother God ... Just as the water broke in the wombs of our mother, so we open the waters of mother church."
Unauthorised changes to the ritual and language would invalidate both the Mass and the ordination. Further the women have adopted what is clearly a pagan or pantheistic position.
In the most traditional part, the candidates -- most of whom are grandmothers or old enough to be so -- prostrated themselves on the floor before a makeshift altar. The congregation chanted a litany of saints with many traditional names, but also those of non-Catholics, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and whose lives also challenged Catholic teaching, such as Harvey Milk, a gay San Francisco city councilman who was shot to death in 1978.
More unauthorised changes to the ritual and language with the additional offence of promoting homosexuality.
But at the prayer of consecration, they offered their first Eucharist, "together with Benedict, our pope, and with all our bishops, men and women."
The number of unauthorised and therefore sacriligious changes keeps mounting, to which they have added hypocrisy by invoking the name of the Holy Father.
The Catholic Church teaches that only males can be ordained because the 12 apostles were male. It holds that ordination is handed down by a chain of bishops that can be traced back to those 12 apostles. Roman Catholic Womenpriests claims that its bishops are valid -- though illegal under church law -- because their bishops say they were secretly ordained by an active bishop in Europe, or by a man who was ordained by a former legitimate Argentinian bishop who left his office and married.
The bishops who perfomed the consecrations have committed a real sacrilege and invalidated the sacrament.
The Catholic Church does not accept those arguments. In 2003 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- upheld the excommunications of the first group after they appealed their bishop's declaration to the Vatican. Rome leaves it up to local dioceses to issue statements about the group.
If the women have been excommunicated they may neither administer nor receive sacraments, have no share in the prayers of the Church and cannot exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
"This is a sad moment for us. It has fostered even greater disunity in the church than what existed before this day began. We pray for reconciliation we pray for unity," said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. "Either you accept the teaching of the church or you don't. If you don't in the public manner in which they have done today, then they are choosing to separate themselves from the church, even though they say they are not doing so."
So could we add schism to the list of offences which thee women have committed.
Joan Houk, 66, of McCandless, who was declared a priest, said she would abide by the church's most basic restriction, and not go forward for communion in her parish. "I will remain in my pew and pray for all of those others who also cannot receive communion," she said.
What is the point of going through this whole episode of being ordained a priest if you are simply going to sit in the pews. Further what will it avail you when you have committed grave sins and therefore will not be fulfilling you obligation hear Mass.
Her master of divinity degree would easily enable her to be ordained an Episcopal priest. But she chose Roman Catholic Womenpriests "because I'm Catholic," she said. She knows that she will never be able to officially serve the Roman Catholic Church in any paid or volunteer capacity. But she said she considers her ordination more than a symbolic gesture, because she believes God will recognize it even if the church does not.
The Catholic Church is the body and bride of Christ, mystical yet visible, and given authority to act in His name and person. If the Catholic Church does not recognise their ordinations, then what makes her think God will.
"The church is looking at it as if I am putting myself outside the church. I don't see it that way," she said. "What I hope to do is connect with people who are Catholic who have walked away or are not participating, and convince them to become active in the church again and to belong to a parish, and to use their voice to let their pastors know what is of concern to them," she said.
Does she not realise that you don't need to be a priest to do this. Since Vatican II the laity have been empowered to bring the presence of Christ into the world and to draw souls to him.
Several liberal Catholics offered support for yesterday's ritual. But not all advocates of women's ordination are convinced it's the way to proceed. Phyllis Zagano, a senior research associate at Hofstra University on Long Island is a Catholic theologian who advocates the ordination of women to the diaconate, because that discussion is still permitted in the church.
The question of women's ordination to the diaconate is a seperate matter although tradition again has not been in favour.
The riverboat movement "raises the issue and makes more people discuss it," she said. But she is concerned that some of the women wouldn't qualify if they were male because of their theology or lifestyle.
Yet another sacrilege and sin to be confessed to a validly ordained, male priest when they get over this phase in their lives.
"From what I have read of their biographies, some of the women are not much interested in much of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. So there is a conundrum there. How can you be ordained to serve a community of believers if you don't agree with them?" she said.
Yes, how can you serve those with whom you are not in communion?
For a variety of reasons, including the fact that none of the women's diocesan bishops gave permission for their ordination, "there is no chance of the Catholic Church accepting the orders," she said.
That raises the question as to whether these women will only be able to exercise their ministry onboard boats, like that floating abortion ship in Europe.
Patricia Fresen, a bishop in Roman Catholic Womenpriests, compared their movement to the anti-apartheid movement. "I am utterly convinced that our ordinations are totally valid," she said. "Although they break [canon] law, we believe we are breaking an unjust law. I come from South Africa. We learned from Nelson Mandela and others that if a law is unjust, it must be changed. ... If you cannot change it, you must break it."
I suppose this another case of the sexual apartheid which advocates for same-sex marriage were claiming after the English High Court didn't recognise the "marriage" of two lesbians in Canada and forms part of the wider Freudian obsession with reducing everything to the purely sexual. If not, then it is certainly another attack on the common good for which the sacraments of holy orders and matrimony exist, namely the governence and growth of the Church.
posted by Lactantius at
12:48 pm
