Fifteen Roman Catholic women in the United States, including some Californians, face excommunication after taking up priestly duties following their "ordination" in recent ceremonies designed to challenge the all-male priesthood.
On Thursday, Jane Via of San Diego, who was ordained in June and planned to say her second Mass on Sunday, met for two hours with the local bishop, who laid out the ramifications of her actions.
Three women in other states have received letters from diocese officials warning that they chose to excommunicate themselves when they participated in an illicit ordination near Pittsburgh on July 31. In San Jose, diocese officials warned that a woman priest there was not properly ordained.
Women priests: Articles in the Aug. 11 and Aug. 14 California section about women who were "ordained" to protest the male-only priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church reported that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had not taken a formal position on the issue. In 1994, the conference supported an apostolic letter by Pope John Paul II reaffirming ordination of men only. But the conference has not taken a formal position on the recent series of ordinations, leaving the matter to local bishops. Also, the Women's Ordination Conference became a nonprofit in 1975, not last June as reported in the Aug. 14 article.
"I'm scared of being shut out of the church and not even being allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery," said Via, 58, a San Diego County prosecutor. "But I'm breaking an unjust law and I will accept the consequences."
Along with Via are three other California women who are saying Mass. They like to call themselves "valid but contralegem, against the law."
Dozens more women, generally in their 50s and 60s, are preparing to be ordained in the future, said Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, which became a nonprofit organization in Fairfax, Va., in June after advocating for female priests for 31 years.
All of the ceremonies were conducted on chartered boats -- theoretically beyond the jurisdiction of the local diocese -- amid the medieval pomp of the traditional rite.
Via was among two women ordained on Lake Constance, which borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland, in June. In the first service of its kind in the United States, eight women were ordained in the July 31 ceremony at the confluence of three rivers near Pittsburgh. A year ago, four women, including a Canadian, were ordained in the international waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway between Canada and the United States.
Presiding over some of the ordinations were three European women recently consecrated as bishops in secret ceremonies allegedly led by five bishops who remain in good standing with the church. The identities of the male bishops, who wish to remain anonymous to avoid excommunication, were notarized and then placed in a bank vault, the women priests said.
- 7 Women Claiming to Be Priests Excommunicated Aug 06, 2002
- SHORT TAKES - Rebellious Black Priest to Wed Dec 31, 1990
- Catholics Favor Married and Female Priests, Survey Finds Jun 01, 1996
