Posted on 08/07/2006 8:00:19 AM PDT by NYer
Eileen DiFranco sang the hymns, prayed and took Communion as she had done at countless other Catholic Masses.
But yesterday, for the first time, she led the service as an ordained priest - and received a warm reception from hundreds of Catholics and others.
"Nothing is impossible with our God," she told a congregation at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown. "Not even a woman priest."
Applause rippled across the steamy sanctuary, where many fanned themselves with programs titled: "First Mass. Eileen DiFranco."
DiFranco, 54, of Mount Airy, had participated in a July 31 ceremony that organizers say made her among the first women to be ordained in the United States by the organization Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
Roman Catholic dioceses in the country, including the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the U.S. Conference of Bishops have pronounced the ordination invalid, saying church law allows only men to become priests.
"I feel I have been called out by my community to do this," DiFranco said in an interview. "It has been a nudging along the way by God and by people who know me."
In her homily, DiFranco said people today sometimes found "very little that is meaningful in the teachings of the church about Jesus." Churches that were full two generations ago, she said, "are emptying out, and parishes are closing... .
"Some think that a return to those pietistic days of yesteryear, where the laity knew its place and only the priests knew and spoke the words of God, will repopulate the seminaries and repack the pews."
But DiFranco said people were looking for more from the church. "The big issues that might have brought some of you here today remain unaddressed, untackled, unmentionable," she said.
A nurse at Roxborough High School, DiFranco has been an active member of the Church of the Beatitudes, a congregation of about 20 people in the Old Catholic community. The group rents space from Garden United Methodist Church in Lansdowne.
But DiFranco said she had felt led to hold her first Mass at the church in Germantown.
Twenty-three years ago yesterday, on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, she had gone to a peace rally in King of Prussia and was impressed by the warm greetings of a group of people there.
Members of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown were hugging and kissing one another - and she remembered wanting to be part of a church like that.
On another Hiroshima anniversary, DiFranco celebrated her first Mass at the church, speaking of peace, tolerance and God's love.
"We want to support Eileen and this movement" toward the ordination of women, said Carl Yusavitz, 61, a Mount Airy resident who attends St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Germantown.
"I consider Eileen a Catholic and a priest," he said. "Her validity is based on 'By their fruits, you will know them.' Eileen has wonderful fruits."
DiFranco's son, Ben, 17, who attends La Salle College High School in Wyndmoor, said his mother's service as a priest "is going to be a catalyst for women being ordained in the church."
"A couple of my friends say she is not a priest, that her ordination was not valid," said Ben DiFranco, who assisted his mother at the altar during the Mass. "But I also have friends who are really for it."
The Rev. Bernie Callahan of the Church of the Beatitudes said DiFranco's ordination and first Mass were a sign that "paths are being opened to Catholic women."
"This has happened at a grassroots level, and those things tend to be unstoppable," said Callahan, adding that DiFranco would be a regular celebrant at his church.
Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a Lexington, Ky., resident who was ordained a deacon during the July 31 ceremony, said DiFranco's priestly work was needed.
"We need women's interpretation of the Gospel," said Sevre-Duszynska, who attended DiFranco's Mass. "Most of the poor of the world are women and children. Where are their voices?"
Toward the end of her homily, DiFranco told the congregation that "in Jesus, there was never a disconnect... . The words excommunication and intrinsically disordered would not have been part of Jesus' vocabulary."
The congregation applauded and later greeted her and her husband, Larry, at the entrance to the church.
"It was wonderful," DiFranco said of the Mass. "I felt so lifted up."
Eileen McCafferty DiFranco, M.A.Ed., RN, is a writer, a registered nurse that works at a busy urban high school and teaches nursing part time at a local university. Eileen was active in her parish community for many years and is currently involved in building an intentional church community in the Philadelphia area. She is a core member of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Women's Ordination Conference. Eileen and her husband, Larry have a daughter and three sons.
"Roman Catholic dioceses in the country, including the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the U.S. Conference of Bishops have pronounced the ordination invalid, saying church law allows only men to become priests."
Not quite.
Church law bars the ordination of women because women, intrinsically, ontologically, cannot receive Holy Orders.
Thus, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, etc., have pronounced the ordination invalid because ontologically, the woman could not receive Holy Orders.
From the Church of the Beatitudes web site:
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Old Catholic Holy Orders and Sacraments.
Ancient Validation
Utrecht receives Rights of Autonomy from Blessed Pope Eugene III in 1145.
This Right is confirmed by Pope Leo in 1215 and becomes known universally as the Leonine Privilege.
Privilege subsequently reconfirmed in two Church Councils in 1520 and 1717.
More Recent Validations
Dominus Iesus issued by the Roman Catholic Magisterium in the year 2000, signed by John Paul II on June 16, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on August 6, states, "The churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the (Roman) Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by Apostolic Succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular churches."
A Concordat was signed between the Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, and Archbishop Glazmaker of Utrecht in 1989, recognizing the Catholic status of one another and the validity of one another's Sacraments.
"The Roman Church recognizes the validity of Old Catholic Orders and Sacraments." 1974, Catholic Almanac, Our Sunday Visitor
"The Old Catholics, like the Orthodox, possess a valid priesthood." Separated Brethren, William J. Whalen
"...Catholics may receive the Eucharist, penance or anointing from sacred ministers of non-Catholic denominations whose Orders are considered valid by the Catholic Church. This includes all Eastern Orthodox priests, priests of the Old Catholic and the Polish National Church." A Catholic Guide to the New Code of Canon Law, Thomas P. Doyle, OP
"...Ordinations performed by the bishops of the Old Catholic are considered valid." A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, Rev. Stanislaw Woywood, OFM, LLB
Title is intentionally mis-leading: there are NO Catholic Women Priests that I know of....
What a fraud. If anything, this will drive more people away from church. Maybe she can convince some of her protesting friends in A.N.S.W.E.R. to come fill the vacancies. Or course, she'll have to leave out the parts of the sermon mentioning God and fill the gaps with rants about Hiroshima.
Mother Angelica provided an eloquent woman's voice without being subversive.
Gee, it almost sounds legit.
I wonder if Justin Cardinal Rigali has already smacked this dumb bunny -- and the parish who hosted -- down.
*************
Then why would she want to remain in the Church?
Is this from ScrappleFace ??? :-)
Why do they insist on calling these people 'Catholic?' They are NOT Catholic. This coverage is really starting to piss me off. Ugh.
I guess I better pray for calm.
The headline accomplishes the writer's purpose, to instill in readers the idea that female Catholic priests exist, and that they can administer the sacraments.
This pretty much says it all.
Why would you title this female catholic priest. She is no such thing...
If the Old Catholics or Orthodox ordained
a pig,
the pig would be
just as much a priest
as this faux priestess is.
Among the valid matter REQUIRED for the sacrament of rodination: a baptized and confirmed male.
(Just as the valid matter for the sacrament of matrimony is one unmarried consenting woman willing to have and capable of having sexual intercourse and one unmarried consenting man willing to have and capable of having sexual intercourse, meaning that there is no such thing as homosexual marriage).
woops spelling error
should be "ordination" - perhaps what this woman did could be called "rodination".
There is no such thing as a female Catholic priest!
Why would the Orthodox ordain farm animals?
Precisely.
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