Despite Excommunication, Women to Be Ordained as Catholic Priests
Sunday July 20, 2008
If, as the Bible says, "“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," then it is indeed the power of faith that is leading three women to risk excommunication even as they seek to be ordained as Catholic priests this weekend in Boston.
As the Boston Globe reported Thursday:
The ordination ceremony Sunday, at a historic Protestant church in the Back Bay, is the first such event to take place in Boston, one of the most Catholic cities in the nation.Today's scheduled ordination, which will be conducted by a consecrated woman bishop, is the work of a little-known group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Since 2002, 28 female priests in the US have been ordained by bishops who in turn have been ordained by Catholic bishops in good standing. The group does not reveal their names to shield them from any punitive action by the Vatican.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, in accord with Vatican teaching, says the participants in the ordination ceremony will be automatically excommunicating themselves.
As planned, the three women were ordained as Catholic priests in front of a church crowded with both female and male Catholic worshippers. TheBostonChannel.com has further details as well as video from the ceremony.
Related article: Leap of Faith - Church of England Votes to Approve Women as Bishops
Comments
Please do NOT call them Catholic because they are not! Catholic means universal and they are moving to private by being excommunicated!!
The Church needs priests. Parishes are combining and closing all over the country. Some priests have to travel over a hundred miles on a Sunday to do three or four Masses in different towns. I just don’t understand the opposition to having women as priests. We have women doctors and lawyers. Two hundred years ago that would have been unthinkable. If there had been more women priests in the past, perhaps there would not have been so many pedophiles eager to become priests. I doubt that a woman bishop would pass pedophiles around from parish to parish to ravage Catholic boys.
I wish these women wouldn’t do this. Priests take vows of obedience to the Church hierarchy. How can this, an act of such clear disobedience possibly be a foundation for the priestly vocation? It makes me sad just thinking about it.
It is not that they are WOMEN that’s the issue. It is more that it was the COMMAND OF GOD to establish a MALE priesthood. End of Story.
www.scripturecatholic.com if you want to follow up. Never mind that– it would behoove anyone to look at the historical roots, the early christian (read: Catholic) beliefs and understand the real issue.
I agree wholeheartedly with Pam.
a)If the hierarchy of the Church is asking God for help in finding new leaders, new priests
then God has answered their prayers. There are thousands of women, I would dare to say, who would be eager to become priests.
b)Perhaps this move would rid the church of the vast number of pedophiles who have stolen the faith of their victims.
According to the Catholic faith, priests are called to be spiritual fathers. This must also apply in the natural, physical sense. A priest must have the ability to father a child. A woman cannot father a child; therefore, she cannot be a priest. It is just impossible…Just as a man cannot bear children, and I haven’t heard men go up-in-arms over not being able to bear children. The male priestly vocation has also been tradition since Old Testament times, and Jesus Christ continued the tradition with the 12 apostles. As for the sex abuse scandal, this isn’t something that is unique to the Catholic church. It is evident in ALL denominations even those that have women priests or pastors. As for the shortage of priests, this is a problem of the culture we live in. We live in a culture that supports contraception and abortion. We live in a culture that disdains large families, large being a family that has 3+ kids (maybe even 2+ kids). After my second child, I had a doctor ask me if I wanted to get my tubes tied, don’t want to burden yourself with another child do you? I was like, who are you to tell me how many kids I should or shouldn’t have? Priests and religious typically come from large families. We also live in a culture that has a distorted view of sexuality in general. We as a nation, as a world are in desperate need of human sexuality education…ASAP!! The Catholic Church has such a rich teaching on human sexuality. I really feel for those who don’t know it or reject it. They don’t realize what they are missing. chrisopherwest.com
I meant…. christopherwest.com
Wow, it is about time we have this dialogue, agree or disagree. REBECCA, you get upset that a “man” suggest how many kids to have and yet it is ok for a “man” the Pope, to dictate and continue MALE DOMINANCE. Women that have a need for this, is their choice. For those that have such a strong faith and wish to become Priest should be allowed their
choice. I find that mostly women have the strongest opposition to this. In addition, I believe that Prists should be allowed to many. Before man made laws, they used to marry
FATIMA, is GOD really a male? The acceptance of male dominance that has been ordained in women especially from the church. When we want to opinionate, we here “the Church” or the “the Bible” quotes!!!!! The apostles, the prophets, etc, are all men. We women don’t stand a chance, and it is said that women are our own worst enemy. Except ROSALIE,right on.
Why do women need to be priests? That’s pushing it to the extremes.
I think in dire circumstances it would be okay,
but why the big need for change? It seems like the religious vocations that are available strictly for women are being neglected in this rampage to out-do men.
There need to be people who pray; without prayer there is no hope. women are prayer warriors. As Padre Pio use to say: “Pray and don’t worry!” We are lucky that men don’[t force us to be priests! It’s hard work and requires not just motherly type devotion, but far more than that, it calls for fatherly quidance.
In the beginning of time to the ninth century there were women deacons and priests in the Catholic Church. The information has been kept hidden so that there would be no questioning as to what happened to the continuance of women deacons and priests. The Virgin Mary is actually the first documented Priest in the Catholic Church and among Jesus’ Apostles at the last supper there were women Apostles whose name were found scratched off the historical documents with their name and date of their term as deacon or priest. Women throughout history have always been the most faithfully devoted to God and the Catholic Church. The majority of saints and angels are women and the majority of those who have whole hartedly devoted themselves to God in every way have always been women.
As well as the only ones who have fully sacrificed themselves for God and Church have been women. The role of priest should be given, allowed and acknowledged by the Catholic Church and Vatican. No man before or after Jesus’ death has sacrificed themselves like women have for God and Church and fully stand by their beleif and devotion to Him and His word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As an universally accepted fact of history , we find Priests often tend to control the dictations of Monarchs & influence them to rule their lands with vested interests. May be they found women strategically less equipped to “run” a nation by influencing the monarch / ruler.