VIDEO: Women Priests Ordained In BostonPosted on 07/21/2008 10:37:12 AM PDT by NYer
BOSTON -- Three Catholic women were ordained as priests in a Back Bay neighborhood church this weekend, despite the Vatican's admonition that the trio would be excommunicated if they did so.
VIDEO: Women Priests Ordained In Boston
“The women being ordained today have been called and they are following God’s guidance and direction for their lives,” said Dana Reynolds, a woman from California who became a Catholic bishop in a ceremony in Germany three months ago. “They have said ‘yes’ to God.”
NewsCenter 5's Rondella Richardson reported that a congregation of Catholic worshippers, both male and female, filled the Church of the Covenant on Sunday, singing the hymn “All Are Welcome” at the beginning of the ceremony. A procession escorted the three women past the dark, wooden pews to the front of the church, where Reynolds initiated them into the priesthood.
"Excommunication or not, I will still be a validly ordained priest and still will be able to serve the people of God," said Gabriella Velardi Ward, 61, a Staten Island architect and mother of two, before the ceremony.
Also a grandmother of three, Ward said she had wanted to be a priest ever since she was 5 years old and once considered becoming a nun, but felt the priesthood was her true calling because she wanted to be able to celebrate the sacraments.
She was joined by Gloria Carpeneto, of Baltimore, and Judy Lee, of Florida. Mary Ann McCarthy Schoettly, of Newton, N.J., was ordained as a deacon.
The Vatican, however, said the ordinations would be illegal and the Boston Archdiocese sent out an e-mail to all priests saying that women who try to receive sacred orders and priests who try to confer them are automatically separating themselves from the church.
The Catholic Church has always said women cannot be priests because Jesus did not have female apostles.
The ordination ceremony took place Sunday at the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street, which is affiliated with two Protestant denominations, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ, the Boston Globe reported.
The church, which has a female pastor, offered to let the ordination take place there as a way of supporting and encouraging the women's group.
They are all part of an organization called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which has been holding ordination ceremonies for women since 2002; the organization says there are now 28 women Catholic priests in the United States, according to the Globe.
The group says its ordinations are valid because its first female priests were ordained by bishops who were in good standing with the Vatican. They won't reveal the names so those bishops can avoid sanctions.
The Boston ordinations will coincide with the first Boston conference of four organizations that are pushing for the admission of married men, as well as of women, to the priesthood.
Jean Marchant, who once worked for the Boston Archdiocese's health care ministry, has already been ordained and, together with her husband, serves a small Catholic congregation in Weston, Mass.
For 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has served to carry on the ministry and teachings of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church is made up of women and men, equal in rights and diverse in gifts and ministries.
Following our devotion to Mary, the Church is committed to, and sustained by the many important contributions of women each and every day. As members of our religious communities, lay members in leadership roles within the Church, educators, canon lawyers, and as pastoral and social service providers across many other critical areas, women are helping to shape the course of our Church in following the will of God.
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.
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. That said, the Catholic Church is prepared and eager to welcome back those who seek reconciliation.
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.
This is trademark infringement. The women are free to go out and start their own church of Women Priests and Male Nuns of Reformed Catholicism or whatever. But they think they have to hijack or force the main group to adapt to their worldview. Sort of like the Lieberals who never give up trying to hijack American institutions.
There are no Catholic female priests. The Catholic Church has the right to decide who will be ordained. It has chosen to ordain only men.
NO woman has EVER been ordained as a Catholic priest.
“Excommunication or not, I will still be a validly ordained priest”
I don’t follow the logic of this statement. I also don’t understand the lady who now claims to be a Bishop. How does that work? And why settle for just being a Bishop, why not make yourself a Cardinal?
My mother told me about this yesterday. I thought she was mistaken.
No surprise, ay, that this happened in Massachusetts.
The Commonwealth’s ability to alter and debase standards is simply remarkable. The people there can rationalize anything. Anything at all.
Do you think maybe the MSM might have a stick up their buttocks in regards to the Church? The headline should read “Deluded Women Stage Mock Ceremony of Priestly Ordination”
Have these women even completed any training remotely resembling the seminary education the more traditional male candidate priests receive?
They said “yes” to somebody but I don’t think it was God who was calling.
Wrong plumbing, there is no such thing as a woman RC priest...
Thanks for re-writing that headline...
MUCH more accurate headline! ;-)
Exactly! Like GAYS PRETENDING TO BE MARRIED.....
JESUS WARNED US OF ALL THIS FALSE DOCTRINE GOING ON...
Exactly! Like GAYS PRETENDING TO BE MARRIED.....
JESUS WARNED US OF ALL THIS FALSE DOCTRINE GOING ON...
“The headline should read “Deluded Women Stage Mock Ceremony of Priestly Ordination””
More than deluded...they are deceived in their quest for POWER, rather than genuine, humble service. I doubt that any of them would wash the feet of Jesus with their own tears of repentance. We need to pray for them.
Women former Catholics self-excommunicate in Boston
The Catholic Church isn't a democracy. Don't like it? The door is always open to anyone who wants to leave and form their own church.
Would the Unitarians Considering Christ or the Political Correct Church (USA) thank Catholics if they offered a venue and a megaphone to whatever passes for a violation of church doctrine at the Church of the Covenant?
I know that the Archdiocese of Atlanta successfully sued a bunch of crooks who started a "Catholic Church" that was preying on illiterate Hispanic immigrants. As I recall, the basis of the suit was trademark infringement as well as fraud and a couple of other things.
Women should be allowed. My minister back home is a woman. All of the female ministers I have met are awesome people.
This would be a great thing for the Catholic church.
No, the didn't.
Next story...
Sorry, but that is not the teaching of the Catholic Church....which is why your minister is not Catholic.
Maybe the Catholic Church needs to change for the better.
This is a start in the right direction !
The Catholic church seems to disagree with you. (And it's their call.)
They claim that two women were made bishops by the requisite number of validly consecrated male Catholic bishops (I believe that's three), whose names will be divulged after their deaths.
Knowing the current state of the episcopate, it wouldn't surprise me if that were true (i.e., that several validly consecrated but now heretical RC bishops went through a simulation of episcopal consecration with these women).
I don't think, however, that any number of heretical, but validly consecrated, bishops can confer Holy Orders on females in the first place, so the episcopal consecrations of invalidly ordained women don't matter.
IMO.
CHANGE?...Hmmmm....
Women simply cannot be ordained as RC priests. Not possible.
I doubt that I could declare myself the new editor of the NYT and get any press coverage.
In most Protestant churches the sermon is the center of the worship service.
In the Catholic Mass, the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, is the center of the service (and of the universe, if you want to get right down to it.)
Because Christ was male, and the priest at the altar stands in Christ's place when he celebrates the Eucharist for Christ's Bride, the Church, it is ontologically, liturgically, and physically impossible for a woman to stand in that place.
Putting a woman into the priesthood, as opposed to 'ministry', starts all kind of gender-bending nonsense going. Just look at what has happened in the Episcopal church.
There are many good and historical reasons also (the questionable function of 'priestesses' in the old days, and the sexual revolution against promiscuity and temple prostitution begun by the Jews and continued by the Christians), but the role of the priest as "alter Christus" sets the seal on the impossibility.
Well, they are entitled to their view. I actully agree with them probably 95% of the time. This is one of the issues they are very wrong.
Jesus never said a woman could not be a teacher of his word. I go by my bible. Just as the bible does not tell me to worship Mary. With the exception of the virgin birth, she was just another chick. The bible does not say married couples cant use birth control.
the catholic church needs reformed toward the truth, not away from it.
I am a priest because I say I am, bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Show me where it says in the bible that a female can not be a minister ?
They’re absolutely free to join YOUR church for the purpose of ministering. However, the Roman Catholic Church does not ordain women. Don’t like it? Join another church ...
This was kind of like the rest of the secular and Protestant world telling the Catholic Church what kind of Pope to elect during the last conclave. Sorry, you only get an opionion if you’re a “paying member”.
Show me where says a woman CAN ...
By the way, take of look at all of the Protestant denominations who are “changing for the better”. Their memberships are falling like rocks.
They are wrong. I believe if Jesus was standing right here, he would say that the Catholic church is wrong. You are talking to someone who grew up going to church with my grandpa. Where there was a FEMALE pastor.
There is a difference between the roles of teacher and priest in the Catholic Church. The teaching of our Church is based on Scripture and Tradition. That is the truth. You are certainly entitled to your opinions and to your own church, but please don’t attempt to impose them on Catholics.
I am not saying you have to agree. But I believe the Catholic Church is wrong on this issue. Because I believe Jesus would say so.
its holding the church back from God. it is blatent sexism (my wife told me to add that)
As I said, your opinion isn’t of much value since you’re not a Catholic. And your life-long church going isn’t any more valid than MY life-long church membership. However, I grew up as a Southern Baptist but converted to Catholicism partly because of my feeling that the “church” was changing to fit the times rather than staying true to it’s origial tenants.
Odd that the Catholic Church isn’t telling YOUR church they CAN’T have female ministers, yet you and your church want to tell US how to run OUR Church ...
Did your wife also tell you what Jesus might have said????
Well, there’s 1st Corinthians 14:34, just for starters . . .
Show me in the Bible where it says Abortion is wrong.
Also, the Church lives by the word of God - both Oral (Tradition) and Written (Scripture). Asking solely for Biblical support is not proper. It would be like me asking you to explain the Constitution to me without using English common law. You can get part of it right, but not the fully depths of meaning.
You've remind me of that old joke about Col. Kaddafi:
He is dictator of his own country and he still can't get promoted above Colonel.
His wife told him he couldn’t read that verse ...
Jesus did not, however, ordain any women, even His own mother.
And Christ certainly had no hesitation in ignoring the social conventions of the time, if He thought it was necessary. So, if He had wanted to ordain women, He would have.
Let me repeat. I believe that if Jesus was talking to you and I right now. He would say that the Catholic Church is wrong on this issue.
I have seen female ministers who are full of the holy spirit. who are good and faithfull servents. The catholic church is holding females back.
I only care about the truth and what Jesus says.
The Church is not wrong on this issue. You might be interested to read why. There are many GOOD reasons for this teaching. Here is an excerpt from one small article (the Vatican website has substantially more):
“It has been the universal and consistent practice of the Church to ordain only men to the priesthood. This practice is based upon Christ’s manner of acting in choosing only men as his apostles. The Church believes that Christ’s way of acting was not an arbitrary one and did not proceed from sociological or cultural motives peculiar to his time but was in keeping with the divine plan for the Church. The constant teaching and practice down through the centuries has always maintained that the reservation of the priesthood to men is part of the fundamental structure Christ gave to the priesthood and, in turn, is in accordance with His plan for the Church.
As Pope John Paul II pointed out on a number of occasions, the Holy Scriptures proclaim that Christ’s plan for the Church is spousal and marital. This plan was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, as we see in the prophet Isaiah (54:4-8, 10), who portrayed the Covenant between the Chosen People and God as a “marriage” whereby God himself was understood to be a husband steadfast in his love for his wife.
In the Gospel According to Saint John, John the Baptist announces that “he who has the bride is the bridegroom [Jesus]” (John 3:27-29). John the Baptist is not the Messiah, the Christ, but is only “friend of the bridegroom.” In the Gospel According to Saint Mark (2:19-20), Jesus attributes the title of “bridegroom” to himself when he explains that his disciples do not fast because “they have the bridegroom with them.”
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul uses the same spousal imagery of the Church and Christ when he admonishes the readers that he feels a “divine jealously” with regard to them, “for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2 Corinthians 11:2). In the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians (5:21-32), the relationship of Christ and the Church is said to be a great mystery in the likeness between a man’s love for a woman and Christ’s love for the Church. Christ is the Head and Bridegroom of the Church who “loved the Church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her.” (5:25) Loved by Christ, the Church is joined to him as a wife is to her husband: “the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).:
Go here to read the rest: http://www.archstl.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=173&Itemid=1
The Catholic church has many great female saints, who led armies and founded schools and great monastic orders and even (on occasion) reproved the Pope when she thought he was wrong.
And of course the greatest female saint is the Blessed Virgin, to whom we give all honor due a mortal women who is the Mother of God.
What other church honors women to this extent?
But "male and female created he them," as Christ himself said in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6, and their roles are not interchangeable. Much sorrow and difficulty in the modern world has arisen from forgetting Christ's words!
How is the Catholic Church holding women back? They absolutely free to join any other church. Women serve a very viable and importart part of the Catholic Church.
And, I’d like to like what basis you’re using for presuming to know what Jesus would say to us both.
What about female evangelical ministers. Are they disqualified from the kingdom of heaven ?
If the answer is no. Then the catholic church is wrong for not allowing females into the church.
Consider all of the good that female ministers do. The Catholic Church would benefit.
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