How would you answer this email? Women's Roman Catholic Priests (edited)

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BOBKAT

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Hi Kathy,

Here’s a link to the Women’s Roman Catholic Priest. It is really interesting.

marymagdalenecommunity.org/Who_Are_We.html

When I was looking at her wedding pictures she told me she was married by one of the priest who claim they are RC, I happened to blurt out that we have no women priest and she sent me this email. While I will defend my faith I need help in doing it charitably so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

God Bless
Kathleen
 
This woman is not validly married. That is how you start the conversation. Then you explain that women are never, will never, have never been ordained in the Catholic Church. If you need Cannon Law, Catechism references, etc. I’m sure there are many folks here who can provide that. But this needs to be made perfectly clear to her that she did NOT get married by a Catholic priest.

~Liza
 
BOBKAT said:
Hi Kathy,

Here’s a link to the Women’s Roman Catholic Priest. It is really interesting.

marymagdalenecommunity.org/Who_Are_We.html

When I was looking at her wedding pictures she told me she was married by one of the priest who claim they are RC, I happened to blurt out that we have no women priest and she sent me this email. While I will defend my faith I need help in doing it charitably so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

God Bless
Kathleen
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They’re not Catholic. It’s that simple. They might be attempting to use the word “Catholic” but that doesn’t make them Catholic. They are entirely outside of the Church.

Your friend was either deceived into believing that this woman is a priest, or your friend subscribes to this idea (itself a deception).

You might want to suggest that your friend contact the local diocese and inquire of them whether or not her marriage is a valid sacrament in the Church (more reliable than web posts, of course).

If there was a legal marriage license and the person performing the ceremony claimed to be a Catholic priest, this might also be a matter for the Attorney General of that state.
 
BOBKAT said:
When I was looking at her wedding pictures she told me she was married by one of the priest who claim they are RC, I happened to blurt out that we have no women priest and she sent me this email. While I will defend my faith I need help in doing it charitably so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated.
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Required reading is Inter Insigniores and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, two post-Vatican II documents of the Church concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood. The Church has consistently believed and taught that women may not be ordained.

The web site you linked to is not Catholic. Their mission statement says nothing about being Catholic, nothing about Jesus, nor about salvation at all:
We, the members of the Saint Mary Magdalene Community, pray, worship and share together in Christian fellowship. It is our belief that all people are created by God and deserve to be loved. Our community promotes tolerance, acceptance, and respect. We fulfill our Christian mission by reaching out to all those in need.
They feel “called to replace the hierarchical structures of power and privilege with new structures that require community discernment and the recognition of the gifts and responsibilities of each member” which is opposed to the Scriptural and historical Church.

Their homilies leave much to be desired.
 
Thanks, she stopped by my office to see what I thought of the link, and I told her that I did know of them and that I side with the Vatican on this issue, she went on to say that she belives that women should be priest and I say they cannot, she walked away. I told her they are not Catholic and she insisited they are, she is being decieved.

Thanks
and GOD BLESS

Kathleen
 
Their own website admits they have all been excommunicated. Even if the person in question thinks they “should” not be excommunicated, they themselves say they have been: (website below)
romancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Roman Catholic Womenpriests reject the penalty of excommunication issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on May 29, 2008 stating that the “women priests and the bishops who ordain them would be excommunicated latae sententiae.”
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Just because they reject the excommunication does not make it go away. In effect, they openly admit that they have been excommunicated. The original “womenpriests” were ordained by “Bishop” Rómulo Antonio Braschi of Brasil. His ordination is possible valid but definitely illicit. Details from Wikipedia (I hate it as a source, but it is what I found):
He was ordained as a bishop in Munich by Roberto Garrido Padin, a bishop of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, and Hilarios Karl-Heinz Ungerer, a German bishop of the Free Catholic Church.
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Clearly neither the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church or the Free Catholic Church are in communion with Rome.

Take it as you will…but I do not see how anyone could say these ordinations are valid or the “womenpriests” could be a part of the RC Church.

Steve
 
tampasteve said:
Just because they reject the excommunication does not make it go away.
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Hmmm, maybe I could use that. If I apply for a job and get a rejection letter, I can just reject the rejection letter and report to work anyway. 😛
 
😃 Thanks! Although, you might be considered a volunteer…😉

Further, IIRC, simply being ordained by the illicit Bishop and knowingly violating the Church’s’ rules on ordaining women would have excommunicated anyone before the official excommunication…and anyone after it.

Simply put: there is really just no way that one can argue that they are part of the RC Church. They are clearly outside of it.

Steve
 
Respond by sending her to the official documents:

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

From CDF

ourladyswarriors.org/teach/ordisace2.htm

"Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.

Responsum: In the affirmative."

Also from CDF

ourladyswarriors.org/teach/ordisace3.htm

“In response to this precise act of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, explicitly addressed to the entire Catholic Church, all members of the faithful are required to give their assent to the teaching stated therein. To this end, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of the Holy Father, has given an official Reply on the nature of this assent; it is a matter of full definitive assent, that is to say, irrevocable, to a doctrine taught infallibly by the Church. In fact, as the Reply explains, the definitive nature of this assent derives from the truth of the doctrine itself, since, founded on the written Word of God, and constantly held and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary universal Magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium, 25).”
 
You could also ask your friend, if they are Catholic, why do they “celebrate the eucharist” in a Methodist church?
 
Your friend is undoubtedly married in the civil sense, but she was not married in the Church. Her marriage will not be recorded in the rolls of any Roman Catholic diocese.

As for Roman Catholic Women Priests, an organization which also attempts the ordination of divorced men and others who have no dispensation from the disciplines that are the perogative of the Holy See to impose, I thought our own Archbishop Vlazny summarized the situation charitably in his column, when he spoke out about attempted ordinations that took place in our archdiocese in 2007:

**"On Friday, Aug. 17, the Oregonian reported on a religious ceremony at Zion United Church of Christ in Gresham which was described as a Roman Catholic “ordination.” According to the report, we now have the first woman Roman Catholic priest in Oregon.

Most readers, hopefully, were somewhat suspicious about the event when they learned it did not take place in a Catholic church. Out of respect for those involved in the ceremony, I had decided to make no public statement. The Oregonian also said nothing for three weeks.

My main purpose in speaking up now is to assure you that there was no ordination of a Roman Catholic priest at Zion United Church of Christ in Gresham on July 28. Even though Catholics were involved, the claim that it was a Catholic ceremony is wrong but, hopefully, not intentionally disrespectful of a sacrament which we Catholics regard as a precious treasure, one for which we are called to exercise reverent and faithful stewardship.

Our relationships with other churches are sometimes fragile because of differences in beliefs and values. But in all ecumenical relationships Christian churches do their best to respect the diversity in practices and beliefs. I regret the apparent disregard for this understanding.

Any person who claims to have been ordained a Catholic bishop, priest or deacon without the proper authorization from church authorities not only is making a false representation of the facts but also by such an act leaves our church community. We are always saddened when sisters and brothers walk away from us, particularly in this manner. We continue to work and pray for unity in the essentials of our Christian faith and for charity and mutual respect in circumstances where we disagree."**

In other words, the members of this organization have the civil right to worship as its members see fit. They have as much right to ordain ministers as the Episcopalians have. It is their attempt to represent their ordinations as being within our faith and in keeping with it that are instead deeply disrespectful of it, even if that is not their intention. It is our right to believe that ordination of women is impossible. Mutual respect requires that they respect our beliefs, and not only that we respect theirs.
 
I was looking at this site and read this in the mission statement.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP)
is an international initiative within the Roman Catholic Church.
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An initiative within? I question that. Do they mean they are Catholic lay people and are starting an initiative or is it sanctioned by certain Bishops, or the Vatican it self? I don’t take a favorable view of this movement and so I’m wondering about how it plays out in the church.
 
If by ‘within’ you mean ‘excommunicated’ then they are ‘within’ the Church.

Sort of like ‘yes’ meaning ‘no’. 🙂
 
Shin said:
If by ‘within’ you mean ‘excommunicated’ then they are ‘within’ the Church.

Sort of like ‘yes’ meaning ‘no’. 🙂
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Have they been actually excommunicated?

Or censured for holding contrary opinions?
 
They feel “called to replace the hierarchical structures of power and privilege with new structures that require community discernment and the recognition of the gifts and responsibilities of each member” which is opposed to the Scriptural and historical Church.
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If they reject the idea of a hierarchial ministry, why do they make such an issue of claiming to have ordained priests?
 
Shin said:
Yes, they have been. Google the leaders. 🙂
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Shin:

All Bishops who “Ordain” “women Priests” are automatically excommunicated along with their “Ordinands”. The “Laity” within the organization who have witnessed thes “Ordinations” have been censored, along with those publishing this newsletter. Fair enough?

APOSTOLIC LETTER
ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS
OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON RESERVING PRIESTLY ORDINATION
TO MEN ALONE

In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: “In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.”
  1. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

*From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.
*vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

Double-Linked, and I do strongly recommend reading the whole encyclical,

Your Brother & Servant in Christ, Michael
 
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