OTTAWA -- Seven North American women are planning to be ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood nearest July.OTTAWA -- Seven North American women are planning to be ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood nearest July. Modelling their ordination upon that of the "Danube Seven" in Europe in 2002 the Canadian and American women will be ordained forward the St. Lawrence River following the international conversation on women's ordination at Carleton University in Ottawa. "There are able-bodied precedents for our action", said Judith Johnson North American coordinator of the "Womenpriests" motion "Women were ordained in the subterraneous church of Eastern Europe in the Communist era." The women will be ordained, three as priests, four as deacons, by way of two bishops, Christine Mayr Lumetzberger of Austria and Gisela Forster of Germany. Forster and Mayr Lumetzbeger were among the "Danube Seven" who then went forward to be secretly ordained bishops according to an undisclosed number of Roman Catholic bishops in well adapted standing with Rome. "Our ordination was completely documented through an Austrian notary," said Forster. They were the first women in centuries to be ordained in the apostolic line of succession according to the rites and conducts approved by the Vatican. The Vatican, however, excommunicated the "Danube Seven" calling their priesthood valid yet illicit. "That is what they are going to say about us," said Johnson "but it is an historic beginning." www.WOW2005.org www.womenpriests.org COPYRIGHT 2005 Catholic novel Times, Inc. |
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