Roman Catholic Womenpriests Challenge Vatican on Threat to Excommunicate Fr. Roy Bourgeois

PRESS RELEASE

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Challenge Vatican on Threat to Excommunicate Fr. Roy Bourgeois

Nov.11, 2008
Contacts:
Janice Sevre-Duszynska 859-684-4247 or 859-317-8325
Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP Media Spokesperson USA 703-283-2929

Roman Catholic Womenpriests stand in solidarity with Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois who has been threatened by the Vatican for participating in the ordination Mass of Janice Sevre-Duszynska on August 9th in Lexington, KY, and for giving a homily in support of of women priests. We condemn this action by the Vatican as a blatant abuse of power. We thank Rev. Roy Bourgeois for his prophetic action and urge our fellow priests and bishops to follow his lead and to participate in future ordinations of Roman Catholic Womenpriests. We reaffirm that Christ calls us to liberation, not fear of Vatican reprisals. Therefore, at this sacred moment, we ask priests and members of religious communities to end their silence by speaking truth to power in support of Fr. Roy and women priests. Sign the statement/petition that Women's Ordination Conference and Call to Action are circulating.

For 36 years Fr. Roy, 69, has been a Maryknoll Missionary priest. Members of this community are known worldwide for their work with those who suffer and for identifying root causes of social, economic, structural or systemic injustice. Vietnam veteran, Purple Heart recipient and torture survivor, Fr. Roy is the founder of the School of the Americas Watch, the group which protests the training of Latin American soldiers at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. "The SOA is about men in Latin America who abuse their power in order to control the lives of others," said Fr. Roy in his homily at the ordination Mass in Lexington. "They cause people to suffer and are seen as bullies." Each year in November, the weekend before Thanksgiving, tens of thousands of peacemakers gather at Ft. Benning, Georgia to speak out for justice and to take a stand against the SOA and the foreign policy that this shameful institution represents.

Said Fr. Roy in his homily: "Just as soldiers in Latin America abuse their power and control others, it saddens me to see the hierarchy of our church abusing their power and causing so much suffering among women. Jesus was a healer, a peacemaker, who called everyone into the circle as equals."

Roman Catholic Womenpriests ask the Vatican Curia to examine their consciences:

--Why do you excommunicate women who honor their call to the priesthood, and, in the case of Fr. Roy, the men who support them, but not the priests and bishops who have perpetrated sexual abuse of children?
--Why do you not honor the sensus fidelum -- the voice of the community -- when over 70% of Catholics in the U.S. support women's ordination? (National Catholic Reporter poll)
--Why do you continue to deny the documented archaeological evidence that supports the spiritual leadership of women as deaconesses, priests and bishops for the first 1200 years of Church history?
--Why do you blaspheme Jesus, who treated women as disciples and equals?
--Why do you continue to value Canon Law over the Spirit's sign of the times?
--Why are you afraid to dialogue with us?

Roman Catholic Womenpriests walk in solidarity with Fr. Roy, with Mary of Magdala, the Samaritan woman, Phoebe the deacon, Prisca and Aquila, Priscilla, Bishops Theodora and Brigit and the men and women disiciples of Jesus throughout the ages. Roman Catholic Womenpriests walk in solidarity with Joan of Arc who was executed with the approval of the Church, and centuries later canonized a saint. Roman Catholic Womenpriests walk in solidarity with all who disobey an unjust law. As St. Augustine taught us: “An unjust law is no law at all."

Roman Catholic Womenpriests asks Catholics to:

-- recognize the connections between sexism and violence, sexism and racism, sexism and militarism, and sexism and nationalism.
-- make the connections between lack of feminine images of God and women's suffering in the world.
-- resist the abuse of power by the Vatican by taking a stand for justice (i.e., withdrawing financial support of the Church).
-- empower themselves by organizing to restructure the Church.

Roman Catholic Womenpriests is committed to a grassroots discipleship of equals where all are welcome at the table.
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/