These bishops doing this are not Catholic Bishops, they are usually of the schismatic Old Catholic group that broke away from the Catholic Church following Vatican I.
The Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement was formally excommunicated by the Vatican last year.
They are stocking up on dry wood, gasoline and matches!
These women are identified as Catholics in name only. They have been excommunicated from the Church. They are not Episcopal. Their website is called “Roman Catholic Womenpriests.”
I know that the original “Danube 7” (this first batch of “ordinations” back in 2002) were formally excommunicated, but I had thought that all subsequent excommunications were latae sententiae (i.e. automatic) and needed no formal declaration.
You are already making a statement on how pure their motivation is. Can you prove it? Evil it is the primary factor motivating these women, whatever you like it or not. Disobedience to the Church is one of the primary goals of the evil one, it brings division.
Katharine Jefferts Schori is her name
Remember though, to them, there is nothing wrong with what they do. Coming from the Episcopal Church, I take exception to the quoted statement. In all my years growing up, I never knew that our priests didn’t have “valid orders,” and never knew that what they were doing was considered wrong. We always acknowledged the Catholic Church as the true church, and have practiced many of the same customs that the Catholic Church uses, not to mention the great amount of respect we had for the Catholic Church. I have left the Episcopal church, not because I didn’t like it, but because of the great amount of instability with the world church, the national church, and my own parish. I came “home” to the Catholic Church, and do not regret a single moment in an effort to make such a hard decision. However, I have no contempt for the Episcopal church or its members. They are good people just trying to get by in the same world that we do. Take it easy on them. They are Christian, just like you and I. No need to engage in a pissing contest. Its attitudes like this that keep the churches divided.
My statement was not in reference to female Episcopal Priests, but to Roman Catholic laywomen with delusions of … well… validity. The difference is that the Catholics should know better. Like you, I have no contempt for the faithful in Anglicanism (it’d be hard to, considering almost my entire family is still Episcopalian!)
I think we need to keep in mind here that evil is often enough a misprioritization of goods. Thus the women may believe what they are doing is good, but they are willfully rejecting the teaching of the Church and thus causing schism.
), these women are knowingly committing evil by dividing the church and creating scandle.Yeh, you’re right to a point. I’m not saying that evil or selfishness is not involved. Perhaps it is. I don’t really know. It’s just difficult for me to imagine that everyone within that movement or every woman who thinks she has a call to the priesthood is acting purely from those motives. I simply want to know what those other motives might be and is there a way the Church can meet the needs of these people on some level. I agree that disobedience and division is a primary goal of the evil one, but it seems to me the Church still must be concerned for those women who, though misguided or misled, are still seeking to touch God.
No, I think the theological issues are fairly well resolved. Another statement isn’t necessary. Still, some kind of pastoral response could go a long way to restoring communication between these women and the Church. At the very least, I’m sure ridicule isn’t the answer to the problem.What, everytime a buncha wackos plays dress-up and let’s pretend, the Pope should issue a statement?
I’m fairly certain the Bishops involved where these little dramas happen have made the appropriate pastoral responses (which would be out of the public eye, so you and I wouldn’t be privy). I know I’ve seen numerous public statements from various Bishops condemning these faux-ordinations, which usually means that the private correspondence was ignored and now the Bishop must go public to protect the faithful.
Well, when you do something ridiculous, you invite ridicule.