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Editor's Note: The following excerpt is from the concluding chapter of Fr. Galot's Theology of the Priesthood, titled "The Mission of Woman and the Priesthood." It comes after examinations of the claim to a priesthood for women, the ecumenical situation, and the teachings of Jesus, the New Testament, and the Church. The tradition of the Church, firm and unchanging, rests on the fundamental fact which is Christ's own decision: Jesus chose only men to exercise the priestly ministry. His will revealed itself clearly in the choice of the Twelve, in the powers conferred upon them, and especially in the fact...

In an interview published July 15, Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, called the prospect of the appointment of women bishops in the Church of England an “enormous obstacle” to Christian unity. “All the Churches of the first millennium, Catholic, Eastern and Orthodox, state that only men can be ordained,” he said. “These Churches see the ordination of women as an illegitimate abandonment of authentic Tradition.” “It saddens us that on this point the Anglican Communion has left what we consider the essential Tradition of the Church since its beginning,” he continued. “But the...

Today, Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) Executive Director Erin Saiz Hanna made the following statement in response to the Vatican's announcement that priests who sexually abuse minors, view child pornography, or sexually abuse mentally disabled adults, along with those who ordain women or women who attempt to be ordained, will now be included among the list of "delicta gravioria," or the most serious crimes against church law. The ordination of women is now classified as a "crime against the sacraments," which includes any action that defiles or desecrates the Eucharist. The Vatican's decision to list women's ordination in the same category...

It was meant to be the document that put a lid on the clerical sex abuse scandals that have swept the Roman Catholic world. But instead of quelling fury from within and without the church, the Vatican stoked the anger of liberal Catholics and women's groups by including a provision in its revised decree that made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes in ecclesiastical law. The change put the "offence" on a par with the sex abuse of minors. Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, called the document "one of the most insulting and...

For the past nine months I’ve been working with eight Boy Scouts from my parish, including my own 13-year-old son, toward the completion of their Ad Altare Dei medal, a fairly rigorous religious program for Catholic Scouts that requires them to study the seven sacraments one by one. Service projects and prayers, Powerpoints and collages are all part of the “homework” that has to be done before they conclude with a weekend retreat. I recently helped the boys with the Holy Orders chapter and thought it would be a good experience for them to attend an actual ordination. So this...

CHICAGO, Illinois, April 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In the latest episode in an ongoing controversy, Fr. Michael Pfleger has again publicly voiced his support for women's ordination, this time in a comment posted to his Facebook fan page.  In that comment, he also notes that the archdiocese made him issue the apology he put out on Wednesday.“Sunday, I mentioned in my Sermon that I believe in married Priests and Woman Priests,” the Facebook comment reads.  “I was then told that I had to apologize for saying it durning [sic] a Sermon because that is not allowed, even though that is...

(RNS) With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest. The 11.5-inch-tall fictional graduate of Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., has donned a cassock and surplice and is rector at St. Barbara’s-by-the-Sea in (where else?) Malibu, Calif. She arrived at the church fully accessorized, as is Barbie’s custom. Her impeccably tailored ecclesiastical vestments include various colored chasubles (the sleeveless vestments worn at Mass) for every liturgical season, black clergy shirt with white collar, neat skirt and heels, a laptop with prepared...

A decision to ordain actively gay clergy has caused deep fissures in the nation's largest Lutheran church group, with some traditional Lutherans saying they have been subjected to threats and retaliation as they consider breaking away. Several disaffected members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) say the decision made at the church's national convention in Minneapolis in August could prompt a major exodus from one of America's biggest Protestant denominations. "I wouldn't even begin to tell you how many thousands [of calls] I've gotten," said Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, or CORE, a national coalition...

Bishop Joseph Grech / Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto Bendigo, Australia, Nov 23, 2009 / 05:06 pm (CNA).- The Vatican has said “no” to the use of a Catholic church in Australia for the ordination of four women and three men as Anglican Deacons. St. Killian's Catholic Church in the Australian Diocese of Sandhurst was proposed as the ordination site after the local Anglican cathedral was closed due to safety concerns.According to The Advertiser, the ordination was set to take place at the Catholic church before the Catholic Bishop Joseph Grech of the Diocese of Sandherst addressed the issue with Archbishop...

Chris Gillibrand of Cathcon has this picture of the “pastoral team” of a parish in Linz, Austria, a diocese where crypto-Protestant liberal priests disguise their women friends as ordained clergy. The woman on the right is dressed in a garment clearly indicating that she is a deacon. In fact – no offence – she is no more a Catholic deacon than the MacBook on which I’m writing this post. Women masquerading as ordained Catholic clergy in Linz “Stealth priestesses” is the way these ladies are described by their opponents (ie, orthodox Catholics). The use of the word “priestess” might seem...

Episcopalians overwhelmingly favor tossing a previously approved resolution that bans ordaining openly gay bishops. In discussions that began Thursday afternoon and continued Friday morning during The Episcopal Church's triennial General Convention, Episcopalians spoke frankly, testifying passionately either for throwing out the ban or against rescinding it. "Gays and lesbians are asked to make sacrifices the rest of us are not asked to make," said the Rev. J. Frederick Barber of Fort Worth, according to the Episcopal News Service. Debate centered on resolution B033, which was approved by the General Convention in 2006. It calls for restraint in ordaining bishops "whose...

Vatican City - The Vatican said Wednesday is would consider "illegitimate" any attempts to ordain new priests by an ultra-traditionalist Catholic group involved in a recent row over Holocaust denial. In a statement, the Vatican quoted a letter by Pope Benedict XVI addressed in March to Catholic bishops, in which he stated that members of the renegade Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) would be barred from official roles within the Church unless they agreed to fully abide with its teachings. Such teachings included the so-called Second Vatican reforms of the 1960s, when local languages replaced Latin in the mass...

Some of the seminarians ordained priests for Newark. Credit: The Catholic Advocate Newark, N.J., May 27, 2009 / 06:35 am (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Newark on Saturday ordained 13 priests, the United States’ largest ordination class of 2009. The men were ordained by Archbishop of Newark John J. Myers at a morning Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports. Ten of the ordinands were foreign-born, with three from Colombia, two from Nigeria, and one each from Italy, Ecuador, South Korea, the Dominican Republic and Hungary.Several of the foreign-born priests grew up in...

Vatican City, May 4, 2009 / 10:37 am (CNA).- On the fourth Sunday of Easter, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass at the Vatican Basilica and conferred priestly ordination on 19 deacons for the Diocese of Rome.  In his homily, the Holy Father cautioned of a “worldly” mentality and emphasized the importance of prayer and imitating Christ. Speaking to the congregation yesterday, on a day known as “Good Shepherd Sunday, Benedict XVI explained how Jesus’ disciples experienced the same “joy as Jesus” in knowing God the Father, but they also shared in Christ’s pain in seeing that the love of God is...

PHILADELPHIA Last July, Mary Ann Schoettly was automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church after a ceremony that she says made her a deacon, a ceremony conducted in willful defiance of her religion's ban on ordaining women. Today, in the eyes of a small group of renegade Catholics who believe women should be allowed into the Catholic priesthood, the 66-year-old Sussex County resident was ordained a priest, in a controversial ceremony held at a synagogue. "It's a very fulfilling experience," said Schoettly, a retired high school biology teacher and the 47th female priest associated with the international group Roman Catholic Womenpriests....

Rich Harlow, writing in The Boston Globe, revels in the wit and wisdom of former Catholic priest, James Carroll, whose new book, Practicing Catholic, apparently could have been titled Practicing, Part-time Catholic: "Practicing Catholic" could just as easily have been titled "Conscience of a (Theological) Liberal." It distills its religious outlook from its author's personal history: his Catholic youth, ordination, his excitement over Vatican II's reforms and disillusion with the church's backpedaling therefrom, and finally his decision to trade the priest's collar for the writer's pen. As a Catholic of Carroll's persuasion, I find the intellectual ammo he brings to...

GÈrard LafreniËre, 80, will be ordained as a priest at St. Joseph's Parish on Wednesday night, after a long and circuitous path to the vocation from the young age of 9 or 10 when he first felt the calling. He was married for many years and worked in insurance but was nudged again towards the priesthood after his wife died a year and a half ago." OTTAWA-After nearly a lifetime on a circuitous path, Gérard Lafrenière will finally realize his childhood dream when he is ordained as a priest at a Catholic church in Orléans tonight.“This is something that...

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has given American Maryknoll priest Fr Roy Bourgeois 30 days to recant his support for the ordination of women or face excommunication. The threat is revealed in a letter from Fr Bourgeois to the CDF distributed via an email from his lawyer Bill Quigley, National Catholic Reporter says. According to Bourgeois' letter, which is dated November 7, the congregation has given the priest 30 days to recant his "belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated." The letter indicates that Fr Bourgeois...

One woman say that they will be ‘ordained’ to the priesthood and three to the diaconate during a WomanPriests ceremony at a Chicago-area United Church of Christ-- despite the clear teaching of the Church that these 'ordinations' are null and void, and the participants in the ceremony are guilty of sacrilege. ‘Cardinal [Francis] George could declare that those persons have been excommunicated by the law itself, but they are excommunicated whether the cardinal declares them so or not,’ said an archdiocesan spokeswoman. Barbara Zeman, who will receive priestly ‘ordination,’ earned her master’s degree in theology from Loyola University in Chicago...

Wacky wymynpryst wannabes wend way to Wome CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 11:27 am This just in from AP: Catholic women march in Rome for female priesthood By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press WriterWed Oct 15, 12:23 PM ET Catholic women seeking to become priests denounced the church’s ban on female ordination as sexist and unjust, bringing their campaign close to the Vatican on Wednesday during a worldwide gathering of bishops. [LOL! Er.. um… I mean… Gosh! How sad.] The small group of women representing Catholic organizations from around the world marched across the Tiber River close to St....