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Saturday, June 7, 2008

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Follow Joan of Arc in Response to Vatican Excommunication







Roman Catholic Womenpriests Follow Example of Joan of Arc In Response to Vatican Excommunication)

St. Joan of Arc followed her conscience and refused to obey the hierarchical authorities of her time. On May 30, 1431 at the age of nineteen, Joan was burned at the stake."On being asked whether she did not believe that she was subject to the church which is on earth, namely, our Holy Father, the Pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops and prelates of the church, she replied: "Yes, but Our Lord must be served first." She was canonized a saint 450 years later in 1920. St. Joan's courage to stand up to church authorities and follow her conscience makes her a role model for all those who follow their consciences and live their vocations in spite of rejection and hostile treatment by the hierarchy.

On May 29th, 2008, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared under the heading: "Regarding the crime of attempting sacred ordination of a woman" that "Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See."
According to Vatican officials, this penalty does not permit hearings , appeals or any form of due process.
On May 30th, 2008, Roman Catholic Womenpriests issued a statement rejecting the Vatican excommunication. It stated: "in obedience to Jesus, we are disobeying an unjust law."
Like St. Joan, Roman Catholic Womenpriests are practicing prophetic disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women. Like St. Joan, Roman Catholic Womenpriests have received the harshest punishment ( luckily, burning at the stake is no longer an option for church officials!) from the Vatican, a "latae sententiae", a punishment that makes the ordination of women a crime and means that ordained women are forbidden from receiving sacraments in the institutional church, leading liturgical worship, or holding eccelsiastical office.

The Vatican has not excommunicated any pedophile priest or bishop who covered up these crimes. In fact, some prelates, like Cardinal Law and Cardinal Levada are rewarded with prestigious jobs in Rome. Cardinal Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who signed the edict of excommunication, was bishop of the Portland diocese, the first U.S. diocese to declare bankruptcy. He received a subpoena to testify in the sex abuse scandal before he left San Francisco for his present appointment in Rome. In an article dated July 10, 2004 in the San Francisco Chronicle, Don Lattin writes: "Levada, who served as the archbishop of Portland from 1986 to 1995, oversaw church disciplinary proceedings against two Oregon priests accused of child molestation, including one who was put back in regular parish ministry in 1994, following a brief period of "rehabilitation," the attorneys say. On Tuesday, the Portland Archdiocese -- which has spent more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims of priest abuse -- became the first Catholic diocese in the nation to file for bankruptcy. "


The real scandal here is that the Vatican issued an automatic excommunication against women priests, treating us as criminals while failing to discipline the bishops who have been at the center of the worst scandal in U.S. church history.
Catholics in survey after survey indicate their support for women priests. The church's prohibition has not been received by the faithful, the "sensus fidelium" , and therefore is not authoritative. It has no binding power. It is an unjust law that must be resisted. As St. Augustine taught an unjust law is no law at all. The Vatican's edict of excommunication against the ordination of women is a desperate action by fearful men who are resisting the movement of the Holy Spirit issuing in a new era of partnership and equality, rooted in Jesus' example in the Gospels.

The Vatican says that it is the eternal will of Christ that women cannot be ordained. Yet, this attitude of "blame it on Jesus"contradicts the Vatican's own scholarship. The Pontifical Biblical Commission concluded in 1976 that they found no evidence in Scripture to prohibit women from being ordained. "Seventeen members present at the plenary session of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, voted on various aspects of the report...They agreed unanimously that the New Testament by itself does not seem able to settle in a clear way and once and for all whether women can be ordained priests. "The members voted 12-5 that scriptural grounds alone are not enough to exclude the possibility of ordaining women. Biblical Commission Report "It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the presbyterate," the Pontifical Biblical Commission says. http://members.aol.com/mfgardner/bcr_prst.htm

Jesus treated women and men as disciples and partners in the Gospel . Luke 8 lists Mary of Magdala, Suzanna, Joanna and many more women as disciples of Jesus. How many sermons have you heard on the many women who were Jesus's disciples? The Risen Christ appeared first to Mary of Magdala, apostle to the apostles, and called her to "go and tell" the male and female disciples the Good News. The institutional church should follow the example of Christ who entrusted the central message of Christianity to a woman. Scholars, like Ute Eisen,Doorothy Irvin and Gary Macy report that there is overwhelming evidence that women served in ordained ministry in the early Christian community. In his book, The Hidden History of Women's Ordination, Macy concludes that women were ordained for the first twelve hundred years of church history.

Out of deep love for the Catholic community, Roman Catholic Womenpriests (rcwp) are stepping up and serving a church that is in spiritual need of sacramental ministry. Our communities are growing in North America. In 2008, we will have 8 ordinations in Minnesota, California, Oregon, British Columbia, Boston, Kentucky, and Illinois. We have 50 members in our rcwp community in the U.S., 9 in Canada and many applicants. As bishops close parishes because of the priest shortage and the pedophile scandal, Roman Catholic Womenpriests give hope to thousands of Catholics who are seeking a spiritual home especially those who no longer feel welome in their own church such as the divorced and remarried, gays and lesbians, and women who feel left out and ignored. In response to Christ's call to serve God's people in priestly minstry, womenpriests are going forward with courage and love in our hearts to wherever there is a need. Perhaps, like St.Joan, one day, the institutional church will recognize us as holy women and men who led the church into a new era of Gospel equality and compassionate service in an inclusive church. The gift we bring to our beloved church is the great gift of a renewed priestly ministry in a vibrant, renewed church. "This is the day, God has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it." Viva Joan of Arc! Viva Roman Catholic Womenpriests!

Bridget Mary Meehan
Roman Catholic Womanpriest
Ordained in U.S. in Pittsburgh 2006
sofiabmm@aol.com














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