Vatican: Excommunication for female priests

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2008-06-16 08:16pm

Vatican: Excommunication for female priests

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer Fri May 30, 3:12 PM ET

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican insisted Friday that it is properly following Christian tradition by excluding females from the priesthood as it issued a new warning that women taking part in ordinations will be excommunicated.
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The move dashed the hopes both of women seeking to be priests and of Catholics who see that as an option for a church struggling to recruit men.

A top Vatican official said the church acted after what it described as "so-called ordinations" held in various parts of the world.

Monsignor Angelo Amato of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the Vatican wanted to provide bishops with a clear response on the issue.

The church has always banned the ordination of women by stating that the priesthood is reserved for males. The new decree is explicit in its reference to women.

"The church does not feel authorized to change the will of its founder Jesus Christ," Amato said in an interview prepared for Vatican Radio that was released to reporters. The reference is to Christ's having chosen only men as his Apostles.

Asked whether the Roman Catholic Church was going "against the tide" in respect to other Christian confessions, Amato said the church was in "good company" with Orthodox and ancient Eastern churches and that it was the Protestants who are breaking with tradition.

In March, the archbishop of St. Louis excommunicated three women — two Americans and a South African — for participating in a woman's ordination. They were part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, which began in 2002.

The decree was published Thursday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, which in a headline called the ordination of women a "crime."

The congregation said it acted to "preserve the nature and validity of the sacrament" of ordination.

The decree — signed by the congregation's head, American Cardinal William Levada — said anyone trying to ordain a woman and any woman who attempts to receive the ordination would incur automatic excommunication.

Pope Benedict XVI led the doctrinal office before becoming pontiff in 2005. Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, he has consistently rebuffed calls to change traditional church teachings on divorce, abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and the requirement that priests be male and celibate.

"We didn't expect anything different now, but in 20 to 30 years they will be expressing their regrets when they will need more priests," said Vittorio Bellavite, an Italian spokesman for the international reform group We Are Church.

The Vatican released figures this week showing that the number of priests increased slightly worldwide between 2000 and 2006, with the growth in Africa and Asia. It said the number remained stable in the Americas but dropped nearly 6 percent in Europe.

Catholics who are excommunicated cannot receive the sacraments. Amato said the penalty can be lifted if those so punished are sincerely repentant.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2008-06-16 10:31pm

They remind me so much of the Boy Scouts. The people who are already in the organization think this is all well and noble, and still act bewildered when outsiders and those who don't adhere to the party line leave.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-06-16 10:32pm

Qwerty 42 wrote:They remind me so much of the Boy Scouts. The people who are already in the organization think this is all well and noble, and still act bewildered when outsiders and those who don't adhere to the party line leave.

You mean "Boy Scouts of America". Other nations' Boy Scout programs are often much more inclusive.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2008-06-16 10:43pm

Ah, yes, that's correct. My apologies.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2008-06-16 10:46pm

We were starting to have girls in the Aus cub scouts about the time I left FFS and its long been agressivly advertised as welcoming all. Hell, I think it basicly absorbed groups like the Girl Gides of Australia and so on because girls WANTED to have fun, not sit around baking cakes.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2008-06-16 11:24pm

Wha? Girls want to have fun? Preposterous!

Stuff like this just serves as a reminder of how completely messed up these organizations are.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-06-16 11:38pm

Hawkwings wrote:Girls want to have fun?

Cyndi Lauper says so.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2008-06-17 01:12am

You know, I want to make a comment decrying sexism, but anything that hurts organized religion without injuring people is probably a good thing in the long run.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-06-17 03:25am

Way to go, Pope Benedict XVI, you've just made the word "Vatican" interchangeable with "Taliban." WAKE UP!!! You are NOT living in medieval times!

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-06-17 03:34am

Sidewinder wrote: Way to go, Pope Benedict XVI, you've just made the word "Vatican" interchangeable with "Taliban." WAKE UP!!! You are NOT living in medieval times!

It's been like this for centuries. What's new?

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-06-17 03:35am

Ghetto Edit: This threat has been uttered for many centuries. There's nothing particularly new in the article that hasn't been said several times over the last few centuries.

bobalot · Post by **bobalot** » 2008-06-17 05:58am

The Catholic Church continues to be utterly useless. What a surprise.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2008-06-17 06:06am

The only thing that's changed is that the ordination of women is now itself grounds for excommunication. In the past however female priests were already excommunicated because they willfully participated in improper ordination (which the catholic church considers a schismatic act, which is grounds for excommunication). So essentially this new decree is just the Vatican streamlining its procedures for kicking female priests out of the church.

Note: Just to be on the safe side of perfectly clear, I'm not defending the Vatican's decision.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2008-06-17 10:12am

Sidewinder wrote: Way to go, Pope Benedict XVI, you've just made the word "Vatican" interchangeable with "Taliban." WAKE UP!!! You are NOT living in medieval times!

I don't think they will have reached that point until women are being shot in the head on Vatican Square, for wanting to be priests...

...pity we're not living in Medieval Times; there'd be roast turkey legs for everybody.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-06-17 01:24pm

Kanastrous wrote:...pity we're not living in Medieval Times; there'd be roast turkey legs for everybody.

IIRC, medieval times were pretty good for the nobility and the clergy, who can afford to buy roast turkey legs for everybody; it sucked ass for the people under the nobility and the clergy, i.e., peasants, who, after paying their tithes, have barely enough crops leftover to feed themselves. (There's a reason 'La Morte d'Arthur' focuses on the knights, i.e., the nobility; no one wants to read about peasants scraping for a living that's barely above starvation.)

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2008-06-17 02:20pm

Why stay part of an organisation, that doesn't want you?

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2008-06-17 02:57pm

I find it strange that the Catholic church have forgotten that at least some women seems to have been to some importance to the early Christian church. Paul mentions the "fellow workers in Jesus Christ", the couple Priscilla and Aquila quite a few times.

Red · Post by **Red** » 2008-06-17 03:04pm

So most people at my work, including me, are some version of Protestant. And it's funny to us ta hear the Vatican doing this sort of blatant alienation.

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady...

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2008-06-17 06:16pm

Mange wrote:I find it strange that the Catholic church have forgotten that at least some women seems to have been to some importance to the early Christian church. Paul mentions the "fellow workers in Jesus Christ", the couple Priscilla and Aquila quite a few times.

Then he wants them to shut up in church.....

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2008-06-17 06:23pm

Red wrote:So most people at my work, including me, are some version of Protestant. And it's funny to us ta hear the Vatican doing this sort of blatant alienation.

Alienation in the Western world perhaps, but I'm not so sure it'd alienate people in the Third World whose values tend to be much more... Well, let's just say 'conservative' and be done with it. And the Third World is, frankly, what the catholic church seems to be aiming for more and more these days.

The Vatican doesn't just look at the USA and Europe, after all. If they can win more souls in Africa and Asia by alienating a bunch of folks in the West (who are mostly fritzy liberals anyway, by Vatican standards), the Curia might just consider that a winning ticket.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-06-17 06:27pm

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
Sidewinder wrote: Way to go, Pope Benedict XVI, you've just made the word "Vatican" interchangeable with "Taliban." WAKE UP!!! You are NOT living in medieval times!
It's been like this for centuries. What's new?

No, it's been that way for two thousand years - why the fuck does anyone expect change NOW?

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-17 07:30pm

The Vatican is THE oldest institution in the world. It is also, without doubt, the most conservative in the sense that it clings to the past -- the core Church doctrines have remained essentially unchanged since it finished wiping out the other branches of Christianity before the 300s. This includes the lack of woman priests. As Broomstick says, why expect change now?

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2008-06-17 09:03pm

Sidewinder wrote:
Kanastrous wrote:...pity we're not living in Medieval Times; there'd be roast turkey legs for everybody.
IIRC, medieval times were pretty good for the nobility and the clergy, who can afford to buy roast turkey legs for everybody; it sucked ass for the people under the nobility and the clergy, i.e., peasants, who, after paying their tithes, have barely enough crops leftover to feed themselves. (There's a reason 'La Morte d'Arthur' focuses on the knights, i.e., the nobility; no one wants to read about peasants scraping for a living that's barely above starvation.)

"Medieval Times" is the name of a touristy place in Anaheim where you can sit and eat turkey legs while guys in maybe-period-appropriate dress joust and perform single combat in a ring.

I'm sorry; there's no reason anyone not from around here, should have gotten my meaning.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-06-17 09:05pm

Kanastrous wrote:
Sidewinder wrote:
Kanastrous wrote:...pity we're not living in Medieval Times; there'd be roast turkey legs for everybody.
IIRC, medieval times were pretty good for the nobility and the clergy, who can afford to buy roast turkey legs for everybody; it sucked ass for the people under the nobility and the clergy, i.e., peasants, who, after paying their tithes, have barely enough crops leftover to feed themselves. (There's a reason 'La Morte d'Arthur' focuses on the knights, i.e., the nobility; no one wants to read about peasants scraping for a living that's barely above starvation.)
"Medieval Times" is the name of a touristy place in Anaheim where you can sit and eat turkey legs while guys in maybe-period-appropriate dress joust and perform single combat in a ring.

I'm sorry; there's no reason anyone not from around here, should have gotten my meaning.

Actually, it's a chain, and they have franchises all over North America. There's one in downtown Toronto as well.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-06-17 09:22pm

Kanastrous wrote:
Sidewinder wrote:
Kanastrous wrote:...pity we're not living in Medieval Times; there'd be roast turkey legs for everybody.
IIRC, medieval times were pretty good for the nobility and the clergy, who can afford to buy roast turkey legs for everybody; it sucked ass for the people under the nobility and the clergy, i.e., peasants, who, after paying their tithes, have barely enough crops leftover to feed themselves. (There's a reason 'La Morte d'Arthur' focuses on the knights, i.e., the nobility; no one wants to read about peasants scraping for a living that's barely above starvation.)
"Medieval Times" is the name of a touristy place in Anaheim where you can sit and eat turkey legs while guys in maybe-period-appropriate dress joust and perform single combat in a ring.

I'm sorry; there's no reason anyone not from around here, should have gotten my meaning.

We have one of those in the Chicago area, too. Also called "Medieval Times". And they've been known to do jousting on horses as well as single combat.