Wednesday, June 08, 2005

The Vatican Has Refused To Allow Apples To Fall Upward

Just ran across this odd news item. The article might as well be talking about square circles. There is no such thing as women priests. Therefore there can be no ordaining of them. Therefore there is nothing being reported on here. But the article seems to think there is:
OTTAWA (AFP) - Nine women, including one Canadian and one American, plan to defy the Vatican and become the first female Roman Catholic priests and deacons ordained in North America during a ceremony on a boat on the St. Lawrence River next month.

The ceremony, which is not sanctioned by the Vatican, is to take place July 25 on the river near Gananoque in eastern Canada following a conference on women as priests at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The location for the ceremony was chosen because organizers considered it to be international waters between the United States and Canada where no diocese has juridiction and thus cannot interfere.

"I only have my faith and my hope and what the global scene says to me that I believe it's time to take this step," said former nun Michele Birch-Conery, 65, who was ordained as a deacon last year in Europe. She will be the first Canadian woman to be ordained as a priest next month.

"It is an immensely wounding part in our Catholic history to block women's ecclesiastical participation in orders. I think people have been closed to a deeper, fuller expression of their faith by having, in the hierarchy and levels of authority and decision-making, a male-only church," she said.

Fourteen women have already been ordained in similar river ceremonies in Europe in recent years and 65 others are planning to join their ranks soon.

The Vatican has refused to allow women becoming priests...
Actually I don't think the Vatican has done any such thing, any more than it has refused to allow me to be Napoleon or the Queen of England. The Vatican has no need to forbid ontological impossibilities...

1 comment:

Matt said...

Ummm. A bishop is "ordaining" these women? Who's bishop?