By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Journalist Feminists are crying foul over new Vatican directives concerning the manner in which “grave crimes” in the life of the church are addressed because they believe the document puts participation in female ordination in the same category as the sexual abuse of minors. The Catholic News Agency is reporting that the new norms, released yesterday, deal with the treatment of crimes considered to be "most serious" within the Church. While the bulk of the document deals with the handling of sex abuse cases, it does include other offenses against the Sacraments, such as desecration of the Eucharist and violation of the seal of confession. However, for the first time, female ordination is now considered a "crime against the sacraments" because this category includes any action that defiles or desecrates the Eucharist, such as when a non-ordained person feigns consecration. Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, told the Chicago Tribune that the Vatican's decision to list women's ordination "in the same category as pedophiles and rapists is appalling, offensive, and a wake-up call for all Catholics around the world." "This new canonical declaration which names women's ordination as a serious crime against the Roman Catholic Church is medieval at best," she said. "The idea that a woman seeking to spread the message of God somehow 'defiles' the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards Church that still views women as 'unclean' and unholy." The Church is standing firm, however. "The seven sacraments are an integral and identifying part of the Catholic Church and the faith life of each Catholic," said Washington D.C. Archbishiop Donald W. Wuerl, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "To feign any sacrament would be egregious. The Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times." Monsignor Charles Scicluna of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the idea that the Church views the sexual abuse of minors as being on the same level of offense as the ordination of women is just plain false. "They are not on the same level," he said, and explained that serious sins are divided into those against Christian morality and those committed during the administration of the sacraments. The sexual abuse of minors and child pornography are the graver sins and represent "an egregious violation of moral law," he said.  Even though attempted ordination is grave, it's "on another level," he said, explaining that it is a wound that goes against the Catholic faith and the sacrament of Holy Orders. "So they are (both) grave but on different levels," he said. © All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com