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Boston Globe: another article on the invalid ordination of women
The other day I posted about the illicit, invalid attempt at ordaining women which was to take place in Boston. The Boston Globe reporter was, in my opinion, both sloppy and biased in his work.
Today there is another article, by the same writer. Let’s see if there is a difference.
My emphases and comments.
Group claims [Right! This is a change from the first article, which basically accepted the premise that the breakaway group was actually ordaining.] to ordain women priests in unsanctioned ceremony
By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff / July 20, 2008
A group advocating for the ordination of women this afternoon held a ceremony in a packed Protestant church in Boston at which it declared [That’s fair. They do "declare" that, even though they are wrong.] three women to be Catholic priests and a fourth woman to be a deacon.
The ceremony, like several others that have taken place around the world over the last six years, was denounced by the Roman Catholic church, and critics said the event was a stunt with no religious significance. [Well… it does have religious significance. It is invalid, but it is religiously significant because it reveals the confusion and error that dominates some breakaway groups. This muddies the waters of what "Catholic" means, and what priesthood really is about.] The Catholic Church has consistently taught [In the last article the reporter used language of policy and statements, rather than teaching.] that only men can be ordained as priests, and the Archdiocese of Boston said that the women who participated in today’s ceremony had automatically excommunicated themselves by participating in what it said was an invalid ordination ceremony.
But the women who participated in the event, along with the several hundred people who spent nearly three hours in the sweltering, non-air-conditioned Church of the Covenant, said they rejected the excommunications, and believed that the women had been validly ordained. [Whatever.] The women were vested with white chasubles and red stoles and greeted with a standing ovation as they were declared to be priests; they then helped preside over a service at which they declared bread and wine to be consecrated and offered what they said was Communion to anyone who wished to receive it.
The ceremony was organized by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization that is not recognized by the Roman Catholic church. Catholic church officials say the women are not Catholic, their ordinations are not real, and any sacraments they attempt to celebrate, including today’s Eucharist, are invalid. [Very clear. That is what the Church says.]
The Womenpriests organization says their ordinations are legitimate because Catholic bishops in good standing ordained their first members to become female priests and bishops. Therefore, they argue, the women being ordained can claim apostolic succession, or direct descent from Jesus’s apostles. [Yes. They claim that. But even if some dopey or senile Catholic bishop is willing to do something so foolish as to pretend to ordain women, they would be no more ordained than a yak or a bowl of peach cobbler. Women can’t be ordained priests. They can go through ceremony after ceremony and at the end they are still not ordained.]
The organization has not released the name of the bishops it says consecrated the first women bishops, saying they would face sanction by the Vatican, but says it will release the names once the male bishops die. [Could they be lying? I’m just asking.]
Critics say today’s ordinations are not valid because women can not be ordained. [I would not so much say "critics" as "people with their heads screwed on in the right direction".]
C.J. Doyle, of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called the ceremony “a sacrilegious parody of Holy Orders conducted at a Protestant church by a collection of apostates misappropriating the Catholic name.” [Wow. Nicely done.]
“One must not only be a male to be a Catholic priest, one must be a Catholic,’’ [Well… one has to be baptized for sure.] Doyle said. "The performers in this theater of propaganda [!] are neither. These women ought to have the intellectual honesty to admit that they left the Catholic Church some time ago. Whatever publicity value today’s exercise has, it must be measured against both the manifest fraudulence and the irredeemable hopelessness of their cause.” [Perhaps this fellow should be the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston!]
But the women make the contested claim that there is historical evidence of female priests in the early church, [Wrong. There is no "evidence" of this in the Catholic Church. They can misinterpret all sorts of mosaics or frescos, it doesn’t change the fact that there have never been women priests in the Catholic Church. Some heretical, schismait groups attempted this, admittedly.] so that the ordination of women is “nothing new.” [WHAT?!?]
“Why is Rome so upset about us? Because they know the ordinations are valid,’’ [ROFL!] said Bridget Mary Meehan, spokeswoman for Roman Catholic Womenpriests. “We are not intimidated. We feel so strongly. Nothing can stop the Holy Spirit.’’ [This is blasphemy.]
Three women were declared to be priests at the ceremony today: Gloria Carpeneto of Baltimore, Judy Lee of Fort Myers, Florida, and Gabriella Velardi Ward of New York City. A fourth woman, Mary Ann McCarthy Schoettly of Newton, NJ, was declared a deacon.
The women did not pledge obedience or chastity [Big deal.] – the promises made by Roman Catholic priests. One was introduced to the congregation by her daughter; another by her husband.
The ceremony was presided over by Dana Reynolds of California and Ida Raming of Germany, both of whom have been declared bishops by Roman Catholic Womenpriests. But Catholic church officials say the women are neither bishops nor Catholic – that they too have been automatically excommunicated as a result of their actions.
“We know only too well in how many ways Vatican church leaders refuse to acknowledge the equality in Christ that God has established between men and women, [Here is a basic problem. This is not an issue of "equality". There is a difference between "equality" and "identity".] and how they constantly try to reimpose the precedence of men over women, which is unchristian,’’ [These kooks will always reduce the sacred to the worldly and read the Church through the lens of political categories.] Raming said. “We give witness to the whole world that it is not male gender which is the prerequisite for a valid ordination, but faith and baptism, the foundation of our dignity and equality.’’ [This is a variation of the marxist strain of feminism. Their "witness" is really a code word for "struggle" and they replace classes with sexes. ("Gender" is a misused linguistic category).]
Reynolds called the ceremony an act of “prophetic obedience,” [That is a phrase worthy of Satan.] declared that “today we are turning another page of history in the Roman Catholic Church,” and urged the gathering “Let us begin a revolution of hope here and now in Jesus’ name.’’ [More blasphemy. But note that she uses the word "revolution".]
The ceremony was held in a venerable Protestant church, the Church of the Covenant, which is affiliated with both the Presbyterian Church and the United Church of Christ.
The interim pastor of the church, the Rev. Jennifer Wegter-McNelly, declared the ordination of women “an important part of this church’s identity,’’ and said “we stand with you today.’’
The former president of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ, the state’s largest Protestant denomination, was among several Protestant clergy who attended the ceremony to express their support for the women seeking ordination as Catholic priests.
“If it looks like discrimination, if it acts like discrimination, and if it feels like discrimination, it is discrimination,’’ said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, [Unless you are so deeply confused that you don’t know what a duck… er um… discrimination really is.] the former conference president, who is now senior minister of Old South Church. “Prejudice in liturgical clothing is still prejudice.’’
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.
This is a far better article. It more accurately communicates the positions of both sides.
Meanwhile, also in the Boston Globe, there was a slightly weasely correction printed about the earlier article.
Clarification: The main headline on a report in yesterday’s City and Region section may have led to the erroneous impression that three women will be recognized as priests by the Roman Catholic Church after their ordination tomorrow. As the report and a subordinate headline made clear, the women’s status after the ordination is a matter of dispute. Although the organization hosting the ceremony will consider the women to be Catholic priests, the Vatican and the Archdiocese of Boston will regard them as having excommunicated themselves and therefore as being neither Catholic nor priests.
So if the name of the original ‘consecrating’ bishop is released, will he be disinterred and removed from the cathedral crypt that he will likely be buried in on the grounds that he excommunicated himself by his actions while alive?
Comment by Austin — 21 July 2008 @ 9:38 amThank you Fr. Z for your clear comments and for finding the one decent article on the event. Every article I found was so biased it was worthless. I send my friends links to your site, which as I had hoped when I came in to look would have a sensible response. I wish more priests took things on a directly as you do. Clarity is such a pleasure.
Comment by Ann — 21 July 2008 @ 9:44 amI live in the Boston-area, and have become sick of the coverage this is getting. Every single news station has been talking about it like it’s real. They have been interviewing the women too. I’m surprised the Globe has such a good article about it, but I’ll take it.
BTW, do these women claim to be Catholic? As in baptized and raised in the Church? Has anyone bothered to ask?
Comment by Denis Ambrose — 21 July 2008 @ 9:52 amSo if the name of the original ‘consecrating’ bishop is released, will he be disinterred and removed from the cathedral crypt that he will likely be buried in on the grounds that he excommunicated himself by his actions while alive?
After the Bishop’s name has been released, the Church will ask him if he did “consecrate” any womenpriests. Ooops, they can’t – he’s dead. Just pick any name of a deceased Bishop and claim that he was the one to perform the consecrations. No denial is possible. Perfect.
Comment by Brian Day — 21 July 2008 @ 10:02 am——
Since Michael Paulson wrote a much better article this time, if anyone is so inclined, drop a line at the paper and tell him so. His email is: mpaulson@globe.com
I would raise one side issue and that is saying that the notion that the women are no longer Catholic. If they baptized Catholics, then they were given a mark on the soul at baptism (provided it wasn’t done in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier), that can’t simply be discarded or removed. Nothing, even excommunication, removes that mark.
It’s just a technical point during a time that people like to say that, “you can’t be Catholic if you are fill in the blank”
There are behaviors that are incompatible with Catholicism, such as being supportive, or even indifferent to abortion, and participating in pretend ordinations of women. However, it doesn’t mean they are no longer Catholic.
Comment by Diane at Te Deum Laudamus! — 21 July 2008 @ 10:08 amI wrote to Mr. Paulson a few days ago regarding this issue. He kindly wrote a reply and included my remarks on his blog.
I believe that he was not clear on the distinction between the issue of invalidity and the canonical penalty of excommunication for the crime of a simulation of a sacrament. Also, I believe that the original article was too “Hegelian” insofar as it tried to treat “both sides” equally. The point being that to treat a handful of dissenters as equal to the teaching authority of a Church with 2000 years of unbroken (T)tradition was itself a biased judgment.
In any case, I was pleasantly surprised that Mr. Paulson took the trouble to respond to my email and that he seems to have been willing to consider and acknowledge the points raised by quite a few readers.
Comment by Aelric — 21 July 2008 @ 10:21 amWhen Googling Gloria Carpeneto one discovers that less than a year ago she led a retreat for the Ignatian volunteers in the Maryland Jesuit province. How wonderful (not) that the Society of Jesus is so inclusive as to raise up as a spiritual leader one who denies the teaching of Holy Father, whom the Society is vowed to obey, and the deposit of faith as established by Our Lord, whose Name they bear.
Comment by Augustine — 21 July 2008 @ 10:29 am^
I should have said: “he was not clear in the original article on the distinction …
For what (little) it may be worth, this was what I wrote to Mr. Paulson:
“Your article failed to make an important distinction: the Catholic Church both teaches definitively (e.g. in John Paul II’s Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) and encodes in her law that sacred ordination is validly received by baptized males c.f. canon 1024 of the Code of Canon Law. Can. 1024 A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly. Sacram ordinationem valide recipit solus vir baptizatus. The penalty of excommunication is imposed for the canonical crime of simulating a sacrament. Please issue a clarification to the article stating that the Catholic Church clearly teaches that: (1) such a simulacrum (of a woman receiving ‘ordination’ to the priesthood) is invalid in itself as well as; (2) constitutes a canonical crime punishable by automatic (latae sentenciae) excommunication.”
Comment by Aelric — 21 July 2008 @ 10:31 amBy the way, not only are these women excommunicated for the offense of bestowing/receiving attempted ordination (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20071219_attentata-ord-donna_en.html), they are interdicted for violation of Canon 1378 paragraph 2:
Ҥ2. The following incur a latae sententiae penalty of interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae penalty of suspension:
1/ a person who attempts the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice though not promoted to the sacerdotal order;”
As these women are not in the sacerdotal order (objectively) they thus incur the latae sententia penalty of interdict for “attempting the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice” as apparently witnessed by many.
Comment by Aelric — 21 July 2008 @ 10:49 amReynolds called the ceremony an act of “prophetic obedience,” [That is a phrase worthy of Satan.]
“prophetic obedience” reminds me very much of Kung’s theology.
Comment by JM — 21 July 2008 @ 10:54 am“Just pick any name of a deceased Bishop and claim that he was the one to perform the consecrations. No denial is possible. Perfect.” Doesn’t matter if he could confirm or deny the invalid acts. If every pope since Peter laid hands on a woman and prayed his heart out that she be ordained a priest, she still wouldn’t be a priest. In seminary we had a theology of priesthood prof who went on and on about how we shouldn’t understand ordination as an “ontological change” but rather as an “ordering of gifts to Christian leadership.” I could never understand the big deal about the ontological change stuff until one day I realized that the progs have to get rid of the notion that sacraments confer indelible character. Why? Because this is the traditional objection to women being ordained priests…they are the wrong kind of matter to receive the indelible character of Christ as head of his Church. Also, undermining the notion of indelible character and ontological change helps to reduce the Catholic priesthood to a mere ministerial function rather than a more lofty priestly identity. Again, part of the push for Protestantizing the Roman clergy. Fr. Philip, OP
Comment by PNP, OP — 21 July 2008 @ 10:59 amIf they thought the “sweltering, non-airconditioned Church of the Covenant” was hot just wait.
Comment by mariadevotee — 21 July 2008 @ 11:13 amDiane,
Although doubtless nobody disputes that baptism leaves an ineradicable mark on
Comment by Pleased as Punch — 21 July 2008 @ 11:25 amthe soul, I think you are mischaracterizing the issue of Catholicity. If Baptism
is all it takes, then according to your logic (at least as I understand it)
every validly baptized person in the world is a Catholic. What about Tertullian
and Martin Luther and every other obstinate heretic? Does it make any sense
to speak of them as Catholics after they have fallen into heresy? These women
have clearly and willfully engaged in activities contrary to Catholic teaching,
and thus are manifest heretics. They do not believe what the Church believes.
Therefore, they are not Catholics. I’m sure this can be put with a great deal
more theological precision and subtlety, but I believe this is the core of the matter.
Somehow this amused me. If they can see their way clear to claim that they’re priests, disposing of these requirements would be childsplay. “Look! Anybody can be a priest—no sacrifice or self-restraint required!”
Comment by Will — 21 July 2008 @ 11:39 amI really don’t understand the point of stunts like this. The participants must know that their so called status will never recognized by the Church. If this is really what they want, they should just join the Episcopal / Church of England and they would be right at home.
Comment by Bill Belloc — 21 July 2008 @ 11:46 amDiane at Te Deum, You’re correct. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. When one is excommunicated, and individual cuts himself/herself off from the sacramental life (can’t get to heaven without it) of the Church until he/she makes a good confession, repents, is contrite and is subsequently absolved from the “separating” offense. Though excommunicated, the offending soul is still very much under the sway and control of Holy Mother Church. These poor, misguided women have jeopardized the very salvation of their immortal souls, and we must pray for them.
Comment by William — 21 July 2008 @ 12:10 pmWhat penalties if any are incurred by those who attended the fake ordination in support of these women as witnesses? Thanks.
Comment by Massachusetts Catholic — 21 July 2008 @ 12:35 pmI personally feel discriminated against because of that silly little law that says that one must have a license to practice medicine.
I wonder if any of these priestesses would allow me to practice medicine on them.
Comment by Dan — 21 July 2008 @ 12:36 pmFr. Powell,
My apologies for not being clear. I know that the “ordinations” are invalid – period. The first poster, Austin, asked about whether or not this soon to be named deceased Bishop would be disinterred.
My response was partially a response to Austin and a comment on the womenpriest strategy. I doubt that the Bishop would be disinterred on the word of these women without the ability of the Bishop to refute the charges. Plus the the womenpriests can claim that Bishop ‘X’ consecrated women bishops without the ability of Bishop X to deny/refute the claims. It’s a “perfect” strategy for the womenpriests. I am sorry that the sarcasm of the original post did not come through. Sorry.
Comment by Brian Day — 21 July 2008 @ 12:38 pmC.J. Doyle, of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called the ceremony “a sacrilegious parody of Holy Orders conducted at a Protestant church by a collection of apostates misappropriating the Catholic name.” ... [Perhaps this fellow should be the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston!]
Only a spokesman? Heck, he should be Archbishop of Boston. Or Archbishop or Bishop of someplace in this country. Oh well. The chances are he’s probably married, or at very least an unordained layman, so such an appointment would be unlikely. Still, one can hope.
Comment by PMcGrath — 21 July 2008 @ 12:46 pmEven in it’s correction, the Boston Globe cannot bring itself to state the truth, but has to maintain that “the women’s status after the ordination is a matter of dispute”.... WHAT?? Where is the dispute about their status? They are clearly not Priests because the only position that matters here is the Catholic Church’s position. It is not as though the Church says “no you’re not” and they say “yes we are” and so it is still up in the air! They are not priests… period. The question of whether they are excommunicated may be in dispute since one has to be Catholic in the first place to be excommunicated, and it is not clear where they are in respect to that.
Kudos to the author though… his “corrected” article is a grand improvement. It could be made better with the substitution of the phrase “mistakenly claimed” in place of “declared”, and “pretend” in place of “believe”. As in the following…
“A group advocating for the ordination of women this afternoon held a ceremony in a packed Protestant church in Boston at which it mistakenly claimed three women to be Catholic priests and a fourth woman to be a deacon.”
“But the women who participated in the event, along with the several hundred people who spent nearly three hours in the sweltering, non-air-conditioned Church of the Covenant, said they rejected the excommunications, and pretend that the women had been validly ordained.”
BTW… wouldn’t they have to go through seminary, or can any Catholic man get a Bishop to declare him a priest without any formation or discernment? I don’t think that even MEN have that right!
Comment by Chironomo — 21 July 2008 @ 12:58 pmSadly, I know a few family who believe this non