Posted on 01/23/2010 5:01:26 AM PST by NYer
Inside a red brick house in Falls Church, Bridget Mary Meehan placed a silver chalice of wine and a plate of flatbread on the coffee table in her living room and prepared to lead a sacred, forbidden ceremony.
"As we gather around this table, this intimate little house church table, let us remember that God is raising us up, all of us," she said, smiling at the four worshipers who had come to hear her say Mass.
Three and a half years ago, Meehan joined a group of Catholic women from across the United States known as the Roman Catholic Womenpriests -- ordained as bishops, priests and deacons, sometimes in secret ceremonies, against Vatican law. The first ceremony took place in 2002, when a renegade bishop ordained seven women in a boat on the Danube River near Passau, Germany. Most, if not all members, have been excommunicated.
The group, which has about 70 women, is one of several nationwide gaining support among U.S. Catholics as more of them begin to question the Vatican's stance on women's role in the Church.
"Our goal is to bring about full equality of women in the Roman Catholic Church," said Meehan, 62. "We love the faith. We love the spirituality. That's why we remain Catholic. We are holding disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women. We're willing to go the whole mile with the institution on this."
The movement has a strong following in the Washington region.
Last year, Maureen Fiedler, host of "Interfaith Voices" on WAMU (88.5), organized a fundraiser for her radio program with a special address by the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest facing excommunication for attending a Womenpriests ordination.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Note the msm choice of terminology - "punished". Good to know the pastor is not administering communion. The Latin Church needs to eliminate communion in the hand.
Silly old women...
May God open their eyes to the truth.
Question...why would these women want to be part of a Church that doesn’t want them?
There is nothing “fordden” about it. They can dress up and play whatever games they like. They are not Catholic.What they do has no effect and is not even remotely what occurs in the Mass. Moslems could go through the motions or Methodists could do it. It is no more than a play for a very small audience.
It makes no sense for these people to just keep pushing people to conform to their ideas.
The day the Catholic Church allows this, is the day I leave the Church.
There is no such thing as women priests.
Silly wimmenses....
I suppose the closest they could come would be Church of England, maybe. They have women everythings. But its not Catholic....
Your question is wrongly formed. You should have asked "Why would these women want to be priests in a church which does not recognize female priesthood?" The answer is the same as why sodomites want to be preachers in churches which require their pastors to keep their sexual life within marriage.
Totally agree with you both. Why don’t they just become Episcopalians and get it over with? I even have a problem with the headline. If they are female, they are not RC priests.
As one of them explained: "Our goal is to bring about full equality of women in the Roman Catholic Church," said Meehan, 62. "We love the faith. We love the spirituality. That's why we remain Catholic. We are holding disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women. We're willing to go the whole mile with the institution on this."
In essence, out of defiance, not love for Christ and His Church.
The only difference here is that we admitted we were playing.
Complete baloney..see my previous post.
No need to worry. It won't happen. Pope John Paul II issued an "Apostolic Letter on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis). The Holy Father declared: "Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." - May 22, 1994
If you don't like it, start your own religion...Oh,.....it's all about money isn't it....
I surely hope they realize this and come to their senses.
This is just another stealth attack on the Catholic Church. If these women can get the Church to bend on this issue, then it’s open season on all issues. Stay the course.
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