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August
7, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 14Oakland,
CA
Women risk excommunication for ‘ordination’
Church
officials say action
was ‘invalid ritual’ of
sacrament of Holy Orders
WASHINGTON
(CNS) -- Risking excommunication from the Catholic Church, eight U.S.
women participated in a riverboat ceremony near Pittsburgh that they said
constituted ordination to the priesthood.
At the July 31 ceremony, another four women said that they were ordained
to the diaconate.
A statement by the Pittsburgh Diocese called the ceremony “an invalid
ritual” because of
Church teaching that only men can be ordained to the priesthood and diaconate.
It also said those “attempting to confer holy orders” were
removing themselves from the Church.
Father Ronald Lengwin, Pittsburgh diocesan spokesman, told CNS that Catholics
in his diocese have been asked to pray for the reconciliation of these
women with the Church and that the Church was ready to welcome them back.
One of the women who said she was ordained to the priesthood told CNS
that the ceremony strengthened her ties to the Church.
“I never felt more Roman Catholic or more devoted to the Church”
than during the ceremony, said Bridget Mary Meehan Aug. 1 in a telephone
interview.
“I think in the future the Church will accept women priests,”
said Meehan, a member of the Sisters for Christian Community, an independent
community of 500 consecrated women founded in 1970.
“Christ had women and men as disciples. He did not distinguish,”
she said.
“The bishops are saying we are excommunicated,” said Sister
Meehan, producer of GodTalkTV, which provides cable-channel programming
on women and religion.
The Pittsburgh diocesan statement said: “Those attempting to confer
holy orders have, by their own actions, removed themselves from the Church,
as have those who present themselves for such an invalid ritual. Additionally,
those who by their presence give witness and encouragement to this fundamental
break with the unity of the people of God place themselves outside the
Church.”
The statement quoted Popes Paul VI and John Paul II as saying that the
Church has no power to ordain women because Christ instituted an all-male
priesthood.
A press release by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, the organization sponsoring
the July 31 ceremony, said the ceremony was presided over by three women
“bishops” from Germany. Two of the women “were ordained
secretly by Roman Catholic male bishops in order to avoid Vatican reprisal,”
said the release.
Meehan said that these male bishops are in union with the pope and the
women promised to keep their names secret.
The ceremony took place on a riverboat at the confluence of the Allegheny,
Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
A similar boat ceremony took place last year on the St. Lawrence Seaway
separating Canada and the United States. Other boat ceremonies have taken
place in Europe with the first occurring in 2004 on the Danube River.
The Vatican has said that such ceremonies are invalid ordinations.
Kathleen Strack Kunster, who lives in Emeryville, was one of the eight
women participating in the ordination ceremony.
She told The Catholic Voice that she decided to listen to her heart and
pursue priestly ordination after studying for a master’s degree
in divinity. She would not reveal where she received her degree, saying
she doesn’t want to imply that the school encouraged her to seek
ordination.
She said her classes did connect her with emerging scholarly evidence
that there were some women deacons and priests in the early Church. “There
is no unbroken tradition of a male-only priesthood,” she said.
Originally from Florida, Kunster, 61, said she was active in parish life
for many years, serving as a volunteer in RCIA programs, on parish councils,
and as a trainer of Eucharistic ministers. She emphasized that she has
not served in those capacities at any parish in the Oakland Diocese and
declined to state where her lay ministry had taken place.
She said she plans to start a ministry of reconciliation “for divorced
and remarried Catholics, as well as for others who are frustrated, fed
up and angry with the institutional Church.”
“I am not doing this to antagonize anyone,” she said of the
ordination ceremony. Rather she said she sees herself “standing
on the threshold of the Church, helping people to reconnect with their
parishes.”
Father Mark Wiesner, spokesman for the Oakland Diocese, said there is
sadness in the Church because by their action the women have broken their
communion with the Body of Christ.
According to Church teaching, if the women were to celebrate any of the
sacramental rituals, the sacraments would not be valid.
One of the women who participated in last year’s St. Lawrence ceremony
is a recently resigned official of the Boston Archdiocese, Jean Marchant,
who was director of the archdiocese’s office of health care ministry.
She resigned July 17 after revealing that she was “ordained”
a priest in the 2005 ceremony.
For the ceremony Marchant adopted her great-grandmother’s family
name, St. Onge, because at that time she was not ready to leave her ministry
in the archdiocese, she said.
Marchant told reporters she decided to leave her post now because she
wanted to live her “priesthood more openly” and to participate
in the Pittsburgh ceremony.
(Catholic Voice staff contributed to this story.)
