BOSTON - An activist group hoping to pressure the Roman Catholic Church into dropping its long-standing prohibition barring women from the priesthood says it ordained three women on Sunday.
Church officials did not recognize the ordination, and the Vatican has previously warned that women taking part in ordination ceremonies will be excommunicated.
The group known as Roman Catholic Womenpriests held the ceremony at the Church of the Covenant, a Protestant Church in Boston.
Consider again the statement from the Vatican that "...Church officials did not recognize the ordination..."I don't know about you, but one of the first things that comes into my mind is, you can't have it both ways. Really, you can't.
You can't say that something never happened, which is what the Vatican is saying in that the ordination isn't valid, while at the same time saying the individuals involved will now suffer consequences, and nasty ones at that, for something which either did not or could not happen.
Also, for there to have been a valid ordination, Apostolic Succession must be in place. According to these women's website, that is solidly in place. Check their site, draw your own conclusions.
It's analogous to, oh, let's say, me, swearing you in as a Judge of Commonwealth Court. To state the absurdly obvious, I sure as hell cannot make you a judge, so me just saying the words does no harm. And it certainly doesn't make you a judge.
So, either these women are or are not priests. They might be excommunicated priests, but they are priests nonetheless, because once a priest always a priest. I learned that in probably third grade from my Baltimore Catechism via Sister James Francis, IHM. The imprint of Holy Orders never goes away. It may be controlled, limited, confined, and perhaps suppressed, but it never goes away.
Face it, these women are indeed priests. The Vatican's excommunicating them only proves that they are.
Personally, and this is just an opinion, the day is long overdue for the ordination of women.
Insanely overdue is the issue of celibacy becoming optional.
Again personally, I think what these women did was right.
And haven't the men just a swell job of running The Church?
