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Posted on 02/01/2010 12:31:29 PM PST by SmithL
To parishioners in her small Sacramento congregation, Elizabeth English is their Catholic priest: She presides over their Sunday Mass, leads them during Communion and baptizes their babies.
To the Roman Catholic Church, English symbolizes a topic that church leaders consider closed: the ordination of women priests.
English left the Roman Catholic Church five years ago to pursue her calling to the priesthood. She is now a priest in the Independent Catholic Church, a group not recognized by the Vatican. She is the only female Catholic priest in the Sacramento region.
"I had to leave the church; there was no place for me," she said. "I wish there was."
Last week, English joined a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who is also a priest and about 150 others at St. Mark's Methodist Church in Sacramento to discuss the ordination of women priests.
They called on the church to consider women clergy, saying they are necessary for a vibrant and healthy church that needs the "experience, courage and compassion" of women in the priesthood.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
You wrote:
“How can they be valid if they are coming from a sinful vessel?”
What you’re expressing is a heresy called Donatism. The sacraments work because they come from Christ through the Church. He is always sinless. So is the Church. Fr. Whatshisname standing in front of you might not be holy. That doesn’t effect Christ or what He gave to the Church.
Media needs to buy a clue...they ain’t Catholic ..much less “Catholic Priests”...regardless of what they may call themselves...
.but I guess they think that if they can get away with “Bammy calling himself an American ...it does’nt matter.
Percentage-wise, are there more Catholic child molesters than in the general population?
I think not.
I am NOT saying it is ok. I am just saying I don’t think Catholic or non-Catholic has anything to do with it. Beyond the idea that a perv might think a priestly position might be a good “cover.” But that isn’t the Catholic church’s fault.
If the doctrine or teaching of the Catholic church advocated child molestation, I’d be 100% against them. Which is similar to why I am 100% against Muslims. They teach it, officially, and they officially teach jihad as well.
She look like young boy than woman LOL!
Let's see if we can make this little blurb a bit more accurate:
Elizabeth English play-acts the Mass at the Make-Believe Church of the Tax Deduction in Sacramento on Sunday. She plagarizes all the traditional words and gestures of a Roman Catholic priest, despite the unerring truth taught by the Church since the time of Christ, that it does not recognize women in that role. May God have mercy on the souls of those who follow her.
I think since Pope Benedict has come on the scene the seminaries have been instructed to not admit homosexualists, as they are intrinsically disordered.
“I just think if the Church has no problem accepting Homosexual men, why not women??”
Apart from theological reasons, conservatives should be glad that women aren’t accepted as priestesses because ALL the Catholic women who want to become priestesses are flaming liberal whack jobs who dig baby butchery and think “gay marriage” is spiffy. The clergy as is definitely leans left, and the homosexualist clergy no doubt leans farther, but not consistently as far left as the women who want to become priestesses.
Freegards
I’m sorry but she is not a Priest and I’d go as far as to say this is not a Catholic church. There is no such thing as an “Independant Catholic church”.
There are not a “high number of sex offenders in the Catholic Church”. What a mindless comment.
Too bad these 'parishoners' are delusional. They don't have a 'female priest'. They have an imposter, and any 'sacraments' she purports to celebrate are invalid, as is any 'eucharist'.
There was a dreadful period in the American church when the "lavender mob" controlled quite a few seminaries. I fault the Vatican for failing to come down like the doom of God on those guys, but there are reasons (not excuses but reasons) why they were reluctant to move.
1. There's a long tradition in the U.S. of screaming loud and long about 'interference' from Rome. It dovetails with the strong anti-Catholic political tradition here that goes back to the Know-Nothings and even earlier. It made Rome reluctant to take strong action for fear of causing problems.
2. JPII looked at the problem from the point of view of an orthodox, conservative anti-Communist Pole. For years, the Polish Communist Party used false accusations of homosexual misconduct in order to get rid of priests they didn't like and keep the Church in Poland off balance. When the parties concerned loudly proclaimed their innocence, he took them at their word. A mistake, but understandable.
3. The liberal mindset (aside from 'celebrating gay pride') has always been that child molesters and ephebophiles can be 'cured'. The same liberal bishops who embraced all sorts of heretical nonsense believed the assurances from psychiatrists and psychologists ('the experts') that homosexuals could be 'cured' of trolling for adolescent boys. If the bishops had listened to the actual teaching of the Church (which has consistently taught that homosexuals should not be ordained because of the temptations that seminary life and the priesthood cast in their way) instead of the 'experts', there would have been a stronger response to this. Again, wrong but given the climate understandable.
The number of homosexual priests was still nothing like half, even in the worst period.
And in the later years of JPII the Church began a concerted effort to clean those guys out. They went so far as to hire an independent auditor to monitor their efforts, and the vast majority of dioceses are getting good reports from the auditor. There are a few problem areas, mostly where heterodox bishops are resisting any "interference" from Rome -- but those guys are reaching retirement age quickly and overall the problem priests are almost all gone now.
I recall the outcry here back in the early 80s when three priests were accused of molesting adolescent boys (that's something less than one percent of all the priests in the diocese). One was sent to prison, one was sent to a remote monastery and died there (the statute of limitation had run so he could not be convicted criminally). I'm not sure what happened to the third ultimately, but he was removed from parish work and any contact with the laity.
I researched this issue VERY carefully before we converted in 2003. We used to be Episcopalians and I didn't want to jump from the frying pan into the fire. I can tell you that I personally witnessed a lot more openly homosexual conduct in the Episcopal Church than I ever have in the Catholic Church. But the news media doesn't talk about THAT, or about what's happening to teenagers in ECUSA. After all, it doesn't fit their agenda . . . .
I don't know ANYONE who is against ordaining women as priests, who wasn't also disgusted with the priests who abused children and teenagers.
As for the validity of sacraments celebrated by these offensive priests, the validity of a Sacrament has nothing to do with the state of the soul of the priest celebrating it. If the priest is validly ordained, he is able to celebrate any Sacrament. If the priest's ordination is valid, the only thing that would make a Sacrament invalid, is if there were a problem with the person RECEIVING the Sacrament
The number of perverts masquerading as Priests in the Catholic Church pale in comparison to the number of perverts working in public education. Do you have anything to say about them or these? I doubt it.
The Donatists, against who St. Augustine was struggling, were the equivalent of “Puritans.” They, as a group, were the elect. They refused to accept Roman priests because mamy had been unfaithful during the persecutions. As to the “rusty-pipe<” analogy, one maught ask: HOW rusty? Donatus rejected all those who in HIS estimation were “rusty.” With regard to the unfaithful priests of our time, the only issue would be—in my estimation—were they sinners of unbelievers? There is a difference. Were they struggling or had they gone over to the devil?
Elizabeth English, called Mother by her parishioners, came to share her story. “I am a lesbian, a mother and I have a calling to the priesthood,” said English, 60. “The Roman Catholic Church abandoned me.”
Sunday, she gathered around the Communion table with the rest of the congregation as they sang “One Bread, One Body.” In her homily, she spoke about love, breaking barriers and living your destiny.
English said people often asked her why she didn’t become a minister in another faith. She answers the same every time. “I’m Catholic to the bone.”
She has the grand slam of issues here. Priest and homosexual. She is also a mother. Was she married? Is she now divorced?
Is ex-communication far behind?
Oh, she has already ex-communicated herself. Any formal statement would be superfluous, though it might be useful for those on the outside who might be confused, because of what she calls herself. But since her 'parishoners' call themselves an "Independent Catholic Church", they already KNOW they're outside the faith.
Agreed. There is no such thing as a woman Catholic priest. And there is no such thing as an “independent Catholic church.”
They are something, certainly, but Catholic they are not.
You cannot begin a life of obedience by an act of disobedience.
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