CNS STORY: Canadian archbishop says women's ordination ritual will not be valid

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CANADA-ORDAIN Jun-8-2005 (700 words) xxxi

Canadian archbishop says women's ordination ritual will not be valid

By Domenic D. Nicassio
Catholic News Service

TORONTO (CNS) -- Though nine women will be ordained priests on a boat in the St. Lawrence River in July, Canadian Archbishop Anthony Meagher of Kingston said the ceremony will be neither Catholic nor an ordination.

"To attempt an ordination this way is to step outside the church. If someone decides they don't want to be Catholic, there is nothing we can do. There is no need for me to get out into a row boat and announce that what they are doing is wrong," he said June 7.

At the same time, Archbishop Meagher said that as a protest the actions have significance. "There is no doubt the church has to change. There has to be more involvement of women in leadership and in decision-making," he said. But staging an invalid ordination is not the way to do it, he said. "I think there are more effective ways to protest," Archbishop Meagher said.

An association of approximately 14 groups is coordinating the ordination ceremony under the name "Roman Catholic Womenpriests Program." The ceremony will take place July 25 in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, following a women's ordination conference July 22-24 at Carleton University in Ottawa.

To avoid the jurisdiction of the Kingston Archdiocese and the Diocese of Ogdensburg, N.Y., the organizers have rented a tour boat that will float on the border between Canada and the United States. Among the nearly 500 seats available, 220 already have been purchased at a cost of US$85 each.

Archbishop Meagher said the jurisdiction is "irrelevant because there is no ordination."

The July event will mark the first of its kind in North America. It is modeled after a similar event that took place in 2002 on the Danube River, between Germany and Austria, where seven women were ordained by a schismatic bishop.

The women who took part in that ceremony were excommunicated by the Vatican less than a month after the ceremony. Two of the women priests have since been ordained "bishops" and will perform the St. Lawrence ordinations.

Father Thomas Lynch, dean of studies at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto, predicted the Vatican will respond quickly, as it did after the Danube River incident. "Individuals who have sought this path before have been excommunicated," he said. "There will likely be a public statement from Rome for the sake of the faithful."

Victoria Rue, a candidate for the upcoming ordination, said the threat of excommunication would not keep her from participating.

"I always felt no one could take my church away from me. If it (excommunication) happens, it happens, but it is not anything that would deter me," she said.

She said her desire to be ordained has to do with "understanding the inclusiveness of all images of God."

After the ceremony, the women priests will have no parish and will make only one vow of "co-authority," rather than obedience.

Another candidate, Michele Birch-Conery, 65, a former nun who lives on Vancouver Island, will continue to teach feminist literary analysis at North Island College while acting as a priest for anyone who calls.

"We could be called to the gay and lesbian community here on the island. They might call me to do a blessing or marriage. I probably could become a marriage commissioner for British Columbia," she said.

Birch-Conery said she would "present myself to the people as a Catholic priest."

Father Lynch said the church teaching stipulating that the priesthood was reserved for men is "not about women being less as persons."

"The church feels it has the right to only ordain men because it is a tradition that has been given to us by the Lord himself, and has been affirmed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the centuries," Father Lynch said.

In any action of the sacraments, it is principally Christ who acts, and only secondarily the priest. Christ's maleness, and by extension, the male priesthood, keeps alive the nuptial symbolism that is so much a part of biblical theology and Catholic worship, he said.

"Christ is the bridegroom of the church, and if a priest is ... to act in the person of Christ, he must be male," Father Lynch said.

END

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