quote:15 Women Who Took Up Priestly Roles Face Excommunication Their effort to change the policies of the Catholic Church is met by bishops' warnings.
'I'm breaking an unjust law,' one woman says.
Fifteen Roman Catholic women in the United States, including some Californians, face excommunication after taking up priestly duties following their "ordination" in recent ceremonies designed to challenge the all-male priesthood.
On Thursday, Jane Via of San Diego, who was ordained in June and planned to say her second Mass on Sunday, met for two hours with the local bishop, who laid out the ramifications of her actions.
Three women in other states have received letters from diocese officials warning that they chose to excommunicate themselves when they participated in an illicit ordination near Pittsburgh on July 31. In San Jose, diocese officials warned that a woman priest there was not properly ordained.
"I'm scared of being shut out of the church and not even being allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery," said Via, 58, a San Diego County prosecutor. "But I'm breaking an unjust law and I will accept the consequences."
Along with Via are three other California women who are saying Mass. They like to call themselves "valid but contralegem, against the law."
Dozens more women, generally in their 50s and 60s, are preparing to be ordained in the future, said Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, which became a nonprofit organization in Fairfax, Va., in June after advocating for female priests for 31 years. ....
Source: Los Angeles Times. 8/11/06
In a way, these women are right in that they are equal to anyone else in the church and just as capable to serve others. But they are wrong to want to be priests because all Christians already are.
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