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Any thoughts? I believe this is real sad.

Women in bid to become ordained

AFP via The Age
June 8, 2005

Nine women, including one Canadian and one American, plan to defy the Vatican and become the first female Roman Catholic priests and deacons ordained in North America.

The ceremony, which is not sanctioned by the Vatican, is to take place July 25 on the St Lawrence River near Gananoque in eastern Canada following a conference on women as priests at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Organizers consider the location for the ceremony international waters between the United States and Canada where no diocese has jurisdiction and thus cannot interfere.

"I only have my faith and my hope and what the global scene says to me that I believe it's time to take this step," said former nun Michele Birch-Conery, 65, who was ordained as a deacon last year in Europe. She will be the first Canadian woman to be ordained as a priest next month.

"It is an immensely wounding part in our Catholic history to block women's ecclesiastical participation in orders. I think people have been closed to a deeper, fuller expression of their faith by having, in the hierarchy and levels of authority and decision-making, a male-only church," she said.

Fourteen women have already been ordained in similar river ceremonies in Europe in recent years and 65 others are planning to join their ranks soon.

The Vatican has refused to allow women to become priests and reacted by excommunicating the first seven women ordained on the Danube River between Germany and Austria in 2003 after they refused to retract their vows. But, two of the women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger of Austria and Gisela Forster of Germany, were later secretly ordained as bishops by their male counterparts in the Roman Catholic church, insists Birch-Conery. The two women bishops will perform the St Lawrence ordinations.

"This doesn't conform to the Catholic faith. Church teachings are clear: only men can be ordained," said Monseigneur Serge Poitras of the Apostolic Nunciature in Ottawa, noting that the former Pope John Paul II addressed the issue in 1994.

"People can do what they want. We don't have an army. We won't chase after them. All we can do is deplore such challenges to church doctrine and set the record straight," he said.

Such is the wisdom of Holy Mother Church: "Roma locuta est, causa finita est!" Rome has spoken the cause is finished.
Stephanos I

Ordaining women is like having a Divine Liturgy and consecrating Pepsi instead of wine. Afterwards, you still have Pepsi.

Or, they might successfully change "Pepsi" into "Coke" but it remains "Cola" still!

Amado

Cola is good. We must use inclusive language since the whole order of creation has changed, hasn't it? :rolleyes: Cola is a good, inclusive term.

Assuming that the ceremony is to take place on board a ship, I point out that ships sometimes sink.

Andrew, (the former Naval Lieutenant)

Especially when given a little help. You aren't planning on instigating anything are you? LOL.

Appalling.

Gaudior, who begs to point out that the St. Lawrence has defined portions as American and Canadian...and excellent fishing.

So, do you think there is something really "fishy" about the upcoming women ordinations?

Hopefully, everything (and everybody?) shall wash down the river thereafter!

Amado

P.S. Andrew, can you call in your Navy Seals comrades?

Dear Friends,

Heaven forbid that the newly ordained should be photographed walking on water afterwards . . .

Alex

Or, on thin air?!

Amado

P.S. Alex: What's happening to Canadian women (and, er . . . American women) these days?

Dear Amado,

Well, as a married man I can say that my wife is my bishop, metropolitan and patriarch, all in one.

What I do is very similar to what priests do - obey, grovel, kiss hands and do a lot of apologising, in advance . . .

And there are those who want to perpetuate the power women already have over men?

Where are the human rights guarantees in the constitutional documents when you need them!

Alex

Another giant step for mankind,nope womankind, nope scratch them they have man mentioned, lets see humankind, nope man is in that also...ah feminkind.

welcome to the...jungle.

james

Dear James of Mt Carmel,

The die-hard feminists refer to themselves as, are you ready, "womyn."

Alex

Alex,

I'm walking on egg shells saying this, but down here they already have the readers,cantors and eucharistic ministers positions, it only makes sense the next step...

james, waiting for the admin's silver hammer