More women "ordained"

[Caesar]

independent.com/news/2007/jul/26/women-anointed-catholic-deacons-priest-sb/

The articel is interesting, but upsetting and heavily biased.
My emphasis, my comments

“Is the candidate worthy?” intoned Bishop (-pretender) Patricia Fresen ceremonially, as lifelong Catholic Juanita Cordero stood before her in a pure white gown, about to be ordained as a priest. The question was asked three times during the ordination ceremony on Sunday, July 22, as one female priest and two female deacons were invested with the power to perform sacraments — a function forbidden to women under canon law (thats doctrinal law as well- that women are unable to be ordained to Holy Orders is an infallible teaching of the Church- it isnt just “forbidden”, its impossible). They are part of a movement from within the Roman Catholic Church that has been ordaining female priests since 2002, **though those involved say that the tradition of women priests and bishops dates as far back as Mary Magdalene, whom they consider an apostle of Jesus. **The participants in this movement fervently hope to be embraced by the Vatican, as other splinter groups have been before them. (thats laughable, especialy with Papa Benedict at the helm of Peter’s barque)

Sunday’s ordination, witnessed by more than 100 invited guests, took place at an interfaith center in Santa Barbara that reporters agreed not to name in exchange for an invitation to attend. (Reporters also agreed not to print the names or orders of the nuns in attendance.) The women ordained Sunday join 18 others in North America who belong to an international organization called Roman Catholic Women Priests, which counts among its number approximately 50 female priests and deacons worldwide, including a few whose identities remain undisclosed in an effort to protect their jobs within the church. Also secret are the identities of the male bishops who ordained Bishop Fresen. Film and documentary evidence of that ceremony is being kept by a notary public, not to be released until the deaths of the male bishops.

At least two additional Santa Barbara women are studying to be ordained, perhaps as early as next year. Besides their gender deviating from the Catholic priest norm, neither of the two deacons ordained Sunday — who are scheduled for re-ordination as priests on July 28 — is celibate. Norma Coon, of San Diego, has been married for 40 years. Toni Tortorilla, of Portland, lives with her lesbian partner. Cordero, a newly anointed priest who lives in San Luis Obispo, is a former nun who has been married for 30 years to a former Jesuit priest.

Does this article make mention of the position of the Church? Of the infallible doctrines of the Church? Of the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis which infallibly declared that the Church cannot ordain women?

 

[Caesar]

The ceremony, which took place on the feast day of Mary Magdalene, also differed from the standard Catholic ordination in the names the presiding clergy used for God, who is ordinarily referred to as “the Father.” The female priests instead referred to “Mother and Father” and to “God/de.” (The latter is pronounced like “God,” with the silent, extra letters hinting at a goddess that those in the ceremony declined to refer to explicitly.) Jesus Christ retained his masculine identity, however. (I have an urge to call them pagans, if not that then certainly Gnostic)

The reason that the women are determined to remain Roman Catholics, instead of forming their own church or joining another — such as the Episcopal Church, which ordains female clergy — is that they consider the Roman Catholic Church to be their family, albeit a dysfunctional one, and they have no intention of abandoning it. “It’s in my bones,” said Fresen. “It’s in my blood. There are a lot of things wrong within the church, but I love it, and the only way to change it is to stay.” (in other words, they plan to drag the Church down with them) They added that excommunication, contrary to popular belief, does not remove one from the church; it only means that one cannot receive the sacraments. “Nothing can put you out of the church once you have been baptized,” said Fresen. However, after the first seven women priests ordained on the Danube in 2002 were promptly excommunicated, none of the other ordained females has been excommunicated. (I am curious about that actually- these women are violating the Sacrament of Holy Orders and blaspheming the name of God in their ceremonies, yet they arent excommunicated…)

“The meaningfulness of the Catholic tradition to me is the long history of mysticism in the church,” said priest Victoria Rue, who also teaches theology and theater at San Jose State University. She finds particular inspiration in the women mystics of the Middle Ages. “Priesthood,” added Rue, “is about leadership within the community.” There are many types of ministries to which people are called, she said, concluding, “I feel called to the ministry of the liturgy,” which she described as communal worship.( so not only do these “womenpriests” choose to defy the doctrines of the Church and profane the name of God, they also defy the theology of the Mass- I wonder if they believe in transubstantiation

Does this article make mention of the position of the Church? Of the infallible doctrines of the Church? Of the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis which infallibly declared that the Church cannot ordain women?

 

[frommi]

Just to clarify…the teaching you speak of was never invoked as ‘infallible’.

 

[Caesar]

Just to clarify…the teaching you speak of was never invoked as ‘infallible’.

It meets all the qualifications of an infallible statement, and a clarification document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith upheld this.

 

[tmjackson90]

I do not understand. How can a woman be ordained a priest in the Catholic CHurch? I thought this was forbidden? Can’t the Pope excommunicate a bishop for doing this?

 

[Gerry_Hunter]

It meets all the qualifications of an infallible statement, and a clarification document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith upheld this.

Yes, indeed it does. More specifically, it is infallible because it is taught though ordinary and universal magisterium. It is often overlooked that this exercise of the magisterium is also protected from error. The extraordinary magisterium, exercised when the Holy Father explicitly proclaims a doctrine ex cathedra, is better known and sometimes thought to be the only exercise of the authority so protected. It is not; each is.

What we are dealing with is an attribute of a sacrament – Holy Orders. The attributes are not decided by concensus; they are a part of the Deposit of the Faith. We’re not speaking of a discipline like celibacy here. The attributes of the sacraments are de fide!

Blessings,

Gerry

 

[MFM]

I do not understand. How can a woman be ordained a priest in the Catholic CHurch? I thought this was forbidden? Can’t the Pope excommunicate a bishop for doing this?

She can’t. They are playing make believe and the media eats it up to give these people what they want, attention. As Caesar pointed out, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis makes it clear that ordination of women is impossible, even if a real bishop had ordained them (which was not the case here). The Pope or local bishop could excommunicate them, but will probably just ignore them as it is clear to everyone that this is not a real ordination.

 

[Gerry_Hunter]

The position of the Church on these silly but offensive events is that they are no longer an action involving the Church at all, and should be looked upon as such. More specifically, they are not errant Catholic events; they simply are not Catholic at all.

The people presiding over these exercises had been excommunicated years ago. There’s no point in paying any more attention to what they now do than the Church pays to, say the ordaining or a protestant minister, or for that matter, the reception of a Buddhist monk. It just has nothing to do with things Catholic at all.

The secular press, being anti-Catholic in outlook and disposition, tries to pretend otherwise.

Blessings,

Gerry

 

[MFM]

It meets all the qualifications of an infallible statement, and a clarification document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith upheld this.

Correct. And if someone wants to see for themselves

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
and
newadvent.org/library/docs_df95os.htm
From the CDF response:
This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

No “wiggle room” here.

 

[Genesis315]

The confusion over whether John Paul II’s definitive teaching that he declared must be held by the whole Church is infallible or not comes about because of a very common misunderstanding of papal infalliblity.

The confusion comes from Vatican I’s use of the word “define” which we usually associate with only dogmatic definitions. But, if we read the relator’s instructions on this point, it is being used in the broader sense–simply to definitively proclaim. This is why Vatican II used this more clear phraseology instead (“definitively proclaims”). Both Councils discuss doctrine that must simply be “held” rather than believed with a divine faith, as dogmas require.

This is why Pope John Paul II’s definitive proclamation concerning male-only priesthood that must be “held” by the whole Church is indeed an infallible act, but it does not define a dogma, as the CDF clarified. This is the essence of the Pope’s divinely instituted ministry of definitively confirming the faith and points that have always been taught by the ordinary magisterium.

 

[frommi]

I didn’t say it wasn’t to be assented to…I simply pointed out that it was not an exercise of infallibility per se.

 

[WanderAimlessly]

Just to clarify…the teaching you speak of was never invoked as ‘infallible’.

I didn’t say it wasn’t to be assented to…I simply pointed out that it was not an exercise of infallibility per se.

Wrong!!!

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis has been infallibly defined. Here is a section from Women and the Priesthood (This Rock: November 2003):

In 1994, Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, “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 that pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 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” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).

In 1995, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that this teaching “requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium 25:2)” (Response of Oct. 25, 1995).

 

[Erich]

Between this:

Also secret are the identities of the male bishops who ordained Bishop Fresen. Film and documentary evidence of that ceremony is being kept by a notary public, not to be released until the deaths of the male bishops.

and this:
Gerry Hunter:

The people presiding over these exercises had been excommunicated years ago.

it seems to me that this would then call into question the validity of the Orders of any males subsequently ordained by these bishops – if it so happens that these same bishops (and only these same bishops) were the ones doing the ordaining – wouldn’t it?

 

[mystified]

THe P.T. Barnum syndrome is live and well!

 

[Caesar]

it seems to me that this would then call into question the validity of the Orders of any males subsequently ordained by these bishops – if it so happens that these same bishops (and only these same bishops) were the ones doing the ordaining – wouldn’t it?

No, exommunication does not revoke Holy Orders or invalidate the sacraments. It makes the sacraments illicit, but not invalidate them, so long as the proper Form, Matter and Intent are still present.

Now, in the case of any valid male Bishops who ordain women, the intent can be called into question with good reason, in which case their sacraments could be invalid. But excommunication itself will not revoke validity.

 

[TobyLue]

We must understand that for a sacrament to be conferred three things are necessary: matter and form and intent. For Baptism, water is the matter and “I Baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” is the form with the intent to baptize. If orange juice is used, no baptism is conferred. If water is used but the words “I Baptize you in the name of Jesus” is all that is used no baptism is conferred. In the Eucharist bread and wine must be used as matter and the proper form recited by the priest with proper intent must be used. If grape juice or soda water is used or the words are not properly used, the Eucharist is not confected. Likewise to be ordained the proper matter and form must be used. The Bishop laying hands on a dead men does not confer the ordination of the corpse. If some men appear before a Bishop and Bishop just goes around pointing to these men and saying, “Whoopee doo, I ordain you, and you and you” no ordination is confected. For a proper ordination a “vir” (man) must be the matter. So makes no difference if a Bishop uses the proper form but lays hands on a woman, no ordination takes place. So right off the “bishop” Patricia Fresen was no more a Catholic Bishop than the moon is made out of cheese.

 

[Wolseley]

Most little girls play pretend with dolls and such, but they eventually grow out of it.

There are a few, however, that never stop playing pretend, and they go on to be pretend “priests”, celebrating pretend “Masses”.

I hope they have fun, but I also hope they won’t get really mad at me if I don’t take them too terribly seriously. A woman cannot be ordained as a priest, period. End of story.

She might insist that she can so be a priest, and that she has been ordained one, but that doesn’t mean anything. I can insist that I’m a bushy-backed alien sea slug from the planet McGlooeyshlopz, but that doesn’t make me one.

 

[chewchoo]

the bishop that “ordained” the she-bishop is a secret. the location of the recent ordinations is a secret. i’m confused, they put out press releases, but all of the details are secret.

and those with jobs within the church are secret?? which jobs? and how do we ferret them out?

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

I’ve never heard whether these women, or excuse me, wymyn , prefer the title “Father” or ?

 

[Conciliar]

the bishop that “ordained” the she-bishop is a secret. the location of the recent ordinations is a secret. i’m confused, they put out press releases, but all of the details are secret.

and those with jobs within the church are secret?? which jobs? and how do we ferret them out?

That’s the worst part of the story. Somewhere there are bishops who have excommunicated themselves by their action, yet are still functioning as subversives to the detriment of their flock.

As for the women with jobs in the Church, I can think of any number of personell involved in religious ed of whom no one would say, “Wow! I never would have thought it was her.”