By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Three women are claiming to have been “ordained” into the priesthood on Sunday during a conference by the dissident group, Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
Gabriella Velardi, a New York based architect, Gloria Carpeneto of Maryland and Mary Ann McCarthy Schoettly of New Jersey were supposedly ordained at a Boston-area Protestant church affiliated with the U.S. Presbyterian Church on Sunday. Dana Reynolds of California, a woman who was consecrated a bishop in Germany earlier this year, presided at the ceremony.
In spite of the fact that the Catholic Church forbids the ordination of women, the trio claims to be united in their belief that they are being called to the priesthood and are compelled to resist what they consider to be wrong Church teaching.
“We’re part of a prophetic tradition of disobeying unjust law,” Velardi told the Boston Globe. “Excommunication or not, I will still be able to serve the people of God.”
This weekend’s ceremony represents the first so-called ordination of women to take place in the Archdiocese of Boston, and the event drew a swift and firm response from diocesan officials.
“The ordination of men to the priesthood is not merely a matter of practice or discipline within the Catholic Church, but rather, it is part of the unalterable Deposit of Faith handed down by Christ through his apostles,” officials said in an e-mail sent to all priests in the archdiocese.
“The organization calling itself ‘Roman Catholic Womenpriests’ is not recognized as an entity of the Catholic Church. Catholics who attempt to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the women who attempt to receive a sacred order, are by their own actions separating themselves from the Church.”
Roman Catholic Womenpriests have been holding ordinations for women since 2002 and report 28 women “priests” in the United States. They claim these ordinations are valid because its first bishops were ordained by Catholic bishops in good standing. The identity of these bishops has never been revealed in order to protect them from being sanctioned by the Vatican.
The Archdiocese of Boston has asked the faithful to pray for these women.
“As a faith community rooted in the loving ministry of Jesus Christ, we pray for those who have willingly fallen away from the Church by participating in such activities. And, we pray that they find reconciliation through and comfort in the Catholic Church by willingly returning to the community of believers.”
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In our show, “Excommunication: What it is and What it Isn’t,” Dr. Edward Peters explains the facts about this mysterious and foreboding judgment of the Church. Available in our store at http://womenofgrace.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=440
