Diocese says women excommunicated in 'ordination' ceremony

Published: 2006-08-02

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Risking excommunication from the Catholic Church, eight U.S. women participated in a riverboat ceremony near Pittsburgh that they said constituted ordination to the priesthood. At the July 31 ceremony, another four women said that they were ordained to the diaconate. "They have excommunicated themselves by walking away from the church and by not following church teaching on this matter," Father Ronald Lengwin, Pittsburgh diocesan spokesman, told Catholic News Service Aug. 1 in a telephone interview. A July 31 statement by the Pittsburgh Diocese called the ceremony "an invalid ritual" because of church teaching that only men can be ordained to the priesthood and diaconate. It also said those "attempting to confer holy orders" were removing themselves from the church. Father Lengwin told CNS that Catholics in his diocese have been asked to pray for the reconciliation of these women with the church and that the church was ready to welcome them back. One of the women who said she was ordained to the priesthood told CNS that the ceremony strengthened her ties to the church. "I never felt more Roman Catholic or more devoted to the church" than during the ceremony, Bridget Mary Meehan told CNS Aug. 1 in a telephone interview. "I think in the future the church will accept women priests," said Meehan, who is a member of the Sisters for Community Service. She said it is an independent community of consecrated women founded in 1970. It has about 500 members.

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