I don’t understand—if his views are so strong on this issue, why not join the Anglican Priesthood—instead of going against a major teaching of the Catholic faith?  (honest question from someone currently in RCIA coming from The Episcopal Church)

Sadly, Maryknoll itself has gone through some difficult times.I used to support them until the Maryknoll literature I received did not seem to reflect orthodox Catholic teaching.I know they’ve done great work in the past.

I’m sad to see he didn’t repent and open his heart/mind to the Vatican, but this should be done more often to all those who keep undermining Catholicism and leading people further and farther from the Truth. It’s hard enough for us to explain Catholicism to non-Catholics and when you have someone who will not accept what has always been since Christ walked this earth, it makes it even more difficult. Americanism has changed the way we, as Catholics view Catholicism, we think we have the same “rights” as Catholics that we do as Americans, that we have a “freedom” to choose what we “think” is right. These politicians who are Catholic, who do NOT practice their Baptized beliefs and go against the Church should also receive the same warning and dismissal. They, just the same as Roy Bourgeois is leading people into sin just as much, if not more, than he did!

This is encouraging.  I hope they do they same to the nuns who are unfaithful to the Church.

Personally,  I think that women should be ordained.  It would alleviate the shortage of priests.  I would not had been as vocal the Maryknoll priest, but I would have been a voice within the church, without going outside the church to express my opinion.

God bless Father Roy.  Funny, they didn’t excommunicate the pedophiles, but excommunicated Fr. Roy.  More nonsense.

Hi Joe DeCarlo,

Why would you disobey Christ’s vicar on earth? Not very wise.

Posted by Austin on Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012 1:52 PM (EDT):

God bless Father Roy.  Funny, they didn’t excommunicate the pedophiles, but excommunicated Fr. Roy.  More nonsense.

______________________________________________________________

This is wrong on several counts:

1. The abuse issue mostly involves same sex post pubescent persons
  which is not pedophilia.

2. Some were excommunicated.

3. Excommunication is not used as a punishment but as a medicinal remedy.

Joe DeCarlo,

Priestess is a different religion. I am not sure you understand this to begin with.

Austin,

It did not take long for someone to come in with the abuse comment. Those priests failed to live up to given standard. Fr. Roy denies that the standard even exists.

And before you chime in with political arguments, you might want to undertake some serious theological study.

Praise God! The Vatican did the right thing…How sad for him.  How true are the words in Proverbs 16:18 - ‘Pride goes before destruction,a haughty spirit before a fall’.

I agree Joe DeCarlo in the fact that women should be allowed to be ordained. Who is to say to whom the gift of a vocation is given by the Lord. The Independent Catholic Church has them with no problem. I applaud Fr. Roy for his stance. As far as his excommunication, dismissal and laicization, please remember that that is all man made. If we are taught and believe that once ordained, one receives an indelable mark on the soul then he is a priest forever according to the order of Malchesidek (sp). Come to the Independent Catholic Church where you will be free to practice your priestly ministries fully.

Joe, it isn’t the Church’s opinion that prevents women ordination, but instead it is the Church obeying God commandments. We should not disobey God to solve a problem, but instead ask God to solve the problem instead.

Joe and Austin, Sorry but you are wrong! Joe you’re wrong because the fact remains that the Church is not a democracy. We follow GOD and His laws. Jesus could have easily ordained women in which case we would have seen women apostles, etc. but He did not. That fact does NOT demean women but points to the fact that men and women are different. If I want to bear children as a man I am unable. It is a fact. The Church cannot ordain women in that we do not have the authority to do so. The was pronounced definitively by Pope John Paul II.

Ausin, he was not excommunicated but was canonically dismissed from the order. He excommunicated himself by virtue of his actions. A pedophile can repent. Mr. Bourgeois chose to ignore all warnings and refuse to be reconciled. There is a significant difference. Excommunication is not a punishment for sin. It is a consequence and result of obstinent defiance and a call to repent.

Posted by Jim Profirio-Bond on Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012 3:50 PM (EDT):

I agree Joe DeCarlo in the fact that women should be allowed to be ordained. Who is to say to whom the gift of a vocation is given by the Lord. The Independent Catholic Church has them with no problem. I applaud Fr. Roy for his stance. As far as his excommunication, dismissal and laicization, please remember that that is all man made. If we are taught and believe that once ordained, one receives an indelable mark on the soul then he is a priest forever according to the order of Malchesidek (sp). Come to the Independent Catholic Church where you will be free to practice your priestly ministries fully.
________________________________________________________________

Hi Jim,

Your views are those of men. Christ speaks through His Church.

The Independent Catholic Church is NOT the Catholic Church and it is NOT an alternative to the Catholic Church. Living in heresy is not a road to salvation.

Jim Profirio-Bond,

You are in schismatic church.

“If we are taught and believe that once ordained, one receives an indelable mark on the soul then he is a priest forever according to the order of Malchesidek (sp).”

Yes, priest, not priestess. 

Hope, what commandment is that?  Vatican II made many changes in the Church.  The only argument that the church has for NOT having women priests is that the Apostles were all men.  That is a weak argument.  In those days, women were subjects of men. Secondly, in the early church, there were women deaconesses.

Jim Profiro, The Independent Catholic church is not a part of the Catholic church.  They are on their own.

anon,  I wouldn’t disobey, I would try to make changes

Posted by anon on Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012 2:23 PM (EDT):
This is wrong on several counts:

3. Excommunication is not used as a punishment but as a medicinal remedy.
***
Thank you for the clarification.It’s something we tend to forget.

Here’s what I don’t get: it says he was “automatically” communicated following his Aug. 8, 2008, actions, yet four years later he’s still a member of the priesthood? How is it possible to be a priest when you’ve been excommunicated? Doesn’t the excommunication automatically laicize you?

Come to the Independent Catholic Church where you will be free to practice your priestly ministries fully.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/vatican-dismisses-maryknoll-priest-from-order/#ixzz2CnmCmT6Y

Yes indeed.

I was not, and never will be a child prodigy either…oh, the injustice of it all!  Women have other legitimate gripes without having to have an inferiority complex and a power struggle about this, as if being a priest somehow makes one superior to the laity.  The Church is unlike any secular entity where we have to try to force square pegs into round holes in the name of “equality.”  What a farce!  I don’t need to do every bloody thing men do to feel good about myself—I’m not a man, nor do I wish to be.  Sexist?  Hogwash.
I would love to have a large and faithful Church, but if I can’t have both, I’ll take faithful over large any day.  A few good men?  If that’s the way it has to be.
Jim, we follow Jesus Christ’s example.  First, that he conferred the authority on His male apostles; second, that He was obedient even unto death, not to mention even while calling out hypocrites.  If that is not good enough for you, I don’t know what to say.  A woman who thinks she has a vocation to the Catholic priesthood is deceived.

Austin,
Ignoring the completely uncalled for snipe about the abuse scandal, you should pray for Mr. Roy to repent of his heresy and disobedience.

As for the rest of you, it doesn’t matter what you think, you don’t have the luxury if picking and choosing what’s right and what’s wrong.  The Church has spoken and the issue is settled, and as Catholics you have a duty to obey.

Sorry, this priest is exhibiting the oldest of sins, pride, believing he knows more than the Church.  Jesus picked twelve apostles (men) to be priests and Bishops.  Surely if he had wanted women, Mary would have been the first he would have chosen!  I agree that more theologians (some studying at universities and some are Jesuits) should get the same treatment.  Either abide with the teachings of the Church, or be willing to be excommunicated and join some other church that believes like you do.  Some of these so called theologians deny the basic truths of the Catholic faith and worse are inoculating the young with their secular ideas.  Don’t they realize they will be responsible for not only their souls but the souls they influence?

Has anyone noticed that Church teachings, Bible, Catechism, and other Roman Catholic encyclicals, etc., are more frequently being used as weapons rather than instruments of love?
 
Is this what God would have us do to one another?  Is this what Jesus instructed us to do when an accused adulterous woman was about to be stoned for her sins?

Is this what church or relationships with our neighbor is all about? Are we called to sit in judgment of those who are in, or those who are out; who belongs and who doesn’t, who is sinful and who is holy? Who should be excommunicated or who shall be elevated to sainthood?

Is faith not a gift of God?  What are we called to do with that gift?

Finally have we perhaps mistakenly learned a lot about all from our religious documents but failed to find God in these teachings?

Roy Bourgeois has been more involved in politics than religion for a long long time. His brand of religion appears to be more about politics than faith. He seems to be more focused on hurting the Catholic church as he obviously thinks he knows ‘best’. Pride and getting to close to the secular life and its political principles have caused a once good man to go astray. He will be forgiven if he wants it as that is what we do as Catholics-practice forgiveness and humility. The church would only be allowing a scandal to continue by not take action as they apparently have bent over backward to try to work with Roy Bourgeois but he has only demonstrated a strong WILL to resist and made a decision not to serve the Catholic church as a priest. He brought this on himself, he made the choice as he elected to behave in an anti-Roman Catholic church manner.

So long as he was laicized because of participating in a simulated ordination that was forbidden, and not for his mere opinion on the issue. I think excommunication in this case was excessive. If every Catholic who felt women should be ordained should be excommunicated, that would be the majority of Catholics. For other Christian religions, women’s ordination isn’t even a question. Are they morallly inferior on that account for being inclusive? All that being said, can excommunicated persons be allowed back into the church?

Anon,
You’ve got to be kidding with your response to Austin. So musty old perverts sexually abusing post-pubescent boys isn’t pedophilia. Technically true perhaps, but no less forgivable.
-
You conveniently forget the Cardinals who oversaw years of sexual abuse and kept quiet. Not only did the Vatican fail to excommunicate them, they didn’t even lose their jobs. Bishop Robert Finn, convicted in September of failing to notify police that one of his priests had taken hundreds of lewd photographs of children, is still a bishop as I write this.
-
Only in the male dominated hierarchy and cult of celibacy called the Vatican is such sexual abuse tolerable, yet as we saw at Penn State, in the secular world, these things cost you your job and career. For these vile hypocrites, talking about the rights of women in the Church is the real crime that needs to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. And by defending them you enable this disgrace to continue, and wonder why the pews continue to get emptier.

The fact of the matter is that God the Holy Spirit is still saying that women cannot be ordained just yet in this particular moment in Church history.  They may be one day, but not just yet, said the Holy Spirit, and the mistake the now-former Fr. Roy Bourgeois made is that he decided to get ahead of the Holy Spirit.  That made him to be just as arrogant as those right-wing elements within the Church who keep saying with utmost certainty that women will never ever be ordained (as if they have access to the mind of the Holy Spirit!).  It’s sad really because, now that he is no longer a Catholic let alone a Catholic priest, the organization that he leads, School for the Americas Watch (or SOAW), has now lost its special appeal that it had at one time when a Catholic priest (Roy Bourgeois) was at its helm.  Now, SOAW is just another movement in the U.S.  What a shame!

Women will be ordained as priests. It’s just a matter of time. Catholics overwhelmingly support this. Even most priests accept the necessity and inevitability. Clerical leadership continues to resist. This is politics. Has nothing to do with Christian doctrine.

+JMJ
“Personally,  I think…” is a way to express one’s opinion. Joe is entitled to his opinion. He is not entitled to change the Church, even if lots of well meaning folks agree with him. Thankfully our revealed religion does not rely on what I think. Nor does it rely on what any of us does. The Church isn’t mine; it’s God’s. He gets to decide. He gets to lead. He gets to be worshiped. We don’t have to like it, free will being what it is, but we can’t change it and still be in His Church.

All in, Joe? That’s the choice.

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die…
...And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod: And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre. Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him. And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them. And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them: and the priest’s office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.

I concur with this outcome, but I do warn that part of the left-wing retort against the CDF decision also has some merit: why does the Holy See act with such swiftness and determination when it comes to advocacy of “women priests” (I agree, an oxymoron) but at least seems so bogged down and foot-dragging when it comes to dismissing and laicizing pedophile priests?

Note to “Savvy”: you seem to think that advocating the ordination of women is worse than child molestation.  Incredible.  As far as my need to undertake serious theological study, I have 12 years of Catholic Education, including four with the LaSallian Christian Brothers, and one of my degrees is from a Jesuit University.  I will take Jesuit critical thinking over rote memorization, which you seem to be quite good at, any day.

I am in favor of the ordination of women and married men. Should I be excommunicated?  Well, I’m not leaving and I am not changing my opinion.
It’s my Church too.

The Catholic Church is NOT a democracy where individual opinions matter.  Thank God!

Austin,

I am not saying that it’s worser than child abuse, just that it’s not relevant to this argument that you brought up. This is a sacramental issue. It affects the whole worldwide church that is not just American.

And, married priests are a discipline, not a doctrine. They are not on the same level as women’s ordination.

The ones accusing the church of politics are making political arguments themselves. Sacraments are not civil rights. Nobody has a right to be ordained. Christian equality is based on what God has done, not what we do. We find our value in Christ, and not in the tiles we carry.

Women’s ordination is not a question in Christian communities that do not ordain priests to begin with. Only Anglicans, Catholics and Orthodox have priests. Protestants do not.

A priest is ordained to preside over the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments. A priest serves as an icon for Christ, or acts in the person of Christ. Different iconography leads to a different Gospel and a different God.

Women were leaders in the early church, but no priests. Priestess are a different religion.

So Please give us theological arguments, not political ones.

Zeke,

You are missing the abuse and cover up in other churches, and religions that do not have a male-hiereachy or celibacy.

I am tired of hearing the argument, if only we had women and married priests.

Anybody, men or women interested in power, has not understood the meaning of a vocation.

And the theology school graduates here should ask the places they studied for their money back, since they indoctrinated them into 60s gender wars, but not theology.

I say, this as a woman, who has spent years studying this issue, both objectively and honestly.

Why should millions of people be denied valid sacraments, because those who want to ordain priestesses do not believe in them to begin with?

Sister Sarah Butler, was was very strongly in favour of women’s ordination, spent a lot time in theological study, and changed her mind.

“The tradition is traced to the will of Christ, not to decisions made by the church,” Butler said at St. Joseph’s Seminary, where she has taught for four years.

Sr. Sara also looks at the Church’s “theological arguments” in support of the “fundamental reasons” she outlines. These “arguments” show the “fittingness” of the norm in relation to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Since the third century the Church’s constant teaching has been that the priest acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ). This means he is not only Christ’s “instrument” but also a “sign,” a “sacrament” within a sacrament.  Since Christ was and remains a man, it is fitting that the priest who acts in His place should be a man, for, as St. Thomas says, “sacramental signs represent what they signify by natural resemblance.”

Furthermore, the covenant relationship between Christ and the Church is expressed in Scripture by the “great analogy” of married love: Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. This analogy protects the distinction between Christ and the Church as well as highlighting their unity.

In Mulieris Dig­nitatem John Paul II called the Euch­arist “the Sacrament of the Bride­groom and the Bride,” the “sign” of which is clearest “when the sacramental ministry is performed by a man.” There is also a “comple­men­tarity” ordered to “communion” in the relationship between the priest and the rest of the baptized, for the priest is not only “in the Church,” but also “stands in relation to the Church.”

The spousal love that was only an analogy in the Old Testament took “concrete historical expression” in the Incarnation when Christ became a man. Now sexual complemen­tarity is “sacramentally significant.”

Sr. Sara lists ten feminist objections to the Church’s teaching and answers each one of them.

In brief, she notes that feminists generally ignore the “fundamental reasons” for the Church’s teaching and focus only on the “theological arguments,” which don’t have the same importance.

Moreover, they usually rely on historical criticism of the Bible and give scant attention to the living tradition of the Church, which is necessary for settling this matter. Some feminists blur the distinction between Christ and the Church by denying the sacramental significance of sexual comple­mentarity.

Others ignore the difference between the Catholic priest and the Protestant minister, though there is a difference in kind, not just degree, between the two.

The Catholic priest does not just give pastoral service; he has received sacred powers from our Lord handed down through the Apostles. Holy orders has configured him to Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit so that he can serve as “Christ’s instrument for the Church,” teaching, sanctifying, and governing by our Lord’s “authority” and in his “person.”

Among the feminist advocates of women’s ordination, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has argued that Jesus’ original intention was to form a “discipleship of equals”; Sr. Sandra Schneiders has argued that the glorified Christ is not “exclusively male”; and Sr. Elizabeth Johnson has argued that all the baptized can be Christ-like.

Sr. Sara answers each one, pointing out that all are called to be Christ-like and holy, but the priest alone acts in persona Christi, and that sexual complementarity on the divine plane is ordered to “intimacy and fruitfulness.”

Sr. Sara shows that the tradition of reserving priestly ordination to men meets the three criteria of the Council of Trent for Verbum Dei traditum (the word of God handed on as tradition): (1) the Gospel is its source; (2) it was received by the Apostles from Christ; and (3) it was preserved without interruption in the Church.

The reservation of the priesthood to men, therefore, is not a matter of “discipline” or Church law that may be rescinded, but is “theologically certain” and a “doctrine of faith.” While opposition to the Church’s teaching has continued since 1994, the “ecclesial reality” is that the debate is closed.

The Catholic Priesthood and Women is a splendid and much-needed work. The Church’s teaching needs to be explained because it requires “the full and unconditional assent of the faithful.” In writing her book, Sr. Sara Butler has given us a thorough and invaluable explanation.

I think society seems to have the role of the priesthood all confused.A priest is a servant to all.Somehow we’ve seen this as a status profession rather than a sacrificial vocation.
We can choose among professions, but are called to vocations.If God, through His Church, is not calling women to the priesthood, they’re listening to the wrong voice.

George Staley,

Jesus is our only priest. We do not need the priestess. It’s funny how the diversity dictators want to impose their sameness on Catholics and Orthodox who have a different take on these issues.

The ordination of women as Pastors/Priests is contrary to the teachings of St. Paul.  Men are not to be taught by women serving in a Pastoral leadership role—that is, unless you do not accept the inerrancy of God’s holy word, the Bible.  Even Catholic parishes who have woman as Pastoral Associates in leadership seems to border on violating Paul’s teaching.

Austin,

I am surprised your critical thinking cannot tell the difference between a discipline (married priests)  and a doctrine. (women’s ordination ) They are not on the same level.

I do not think women’s ordination is worser than child abuse. I just think it’s not relevant to the issue being discussed.

Casting Crowns,

We have to disagree on that bit. Paul was talking about discipline in the church. His comments were directed at those women who would talk too much during a service.

A Pastoral leadership role is not the sacrificial priesthood. A better comparison would be a husband as spiritual head.

Some bring up deaconess in the early church, but they worked mostly with women, and were not priests. Today, many women doing the same things in church has invalidated any need for a specific office.

Is a religious vocation a gift from God or an appointment from the Church? Even is Pope is elected! 

Trebert,

That vice-crack misses the point that a Bishop has to first go through the process of being a priest.  So, yes a religious vocation, is first a calling. My spiritual director once told me, “If God wants you to be somewhere nothing on earth will keep you out, if God does not want you to be there nothing on earth will get you in.”

Savvy,

That would hardly explain the rise and election of particularly bad Pope’s such as the Borgia’s, Boniface VIII, Urban VI, Leo X, Clement VII and others of equal or lower rank.

Trebert,

None of these Popes changed or introduced any new doctrine.

Many here seemed to be confused.
.
1) The event that caused him to be excommunicated was a “simulated” mass, for which any priest may be immediately excommunicated.
2) His opposition to the church only put the nail in the coffin.
3) It is not a matter of our opinion on women priest or St. Paul’s words on women that matter.  It is the church’s understanding, through the Holy Spirit, of God’s Revelation about his will and His plan for the church.
.
I would have no issue if the Church decided tomorrow (or never does) that God wants women priests.  However at this point the church is clear on the issue and our responsibility is not to express our desires, but to express support and prayers for the Church.
.
IF God wants the church to change on this or any item, I have faith that God will move the church to those changes.

Rob,

There have been many people who have been opposed to the direction of the church, not the least were Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, etc., etc., some later became saints.

You are blessed to have faith in God, but the church has not always been obedient to the Holy Spirit, i.e., beginning with the persecution of the Jews,Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, witch hunts,and more recently the sexual abuse by clergy & subsequent cover-up,persecution of gays, etc., I`m sure you have heard it all before. 

My favourite story about women as priests deals with Jesus` engagement with the unnamed Samaritan women at the well from John 4. She was so touched with Jesus that she went on the convert an entire town.  When was the last time you heard a priest or bishop do that? Being a priest has nothing to do with gender or appointment.  It has everything to do with listening to the spirit or calling within.

Trebert,

The saints you bring up knew that Christianity was about changing people, not institutions. Their argument was that the church was not living up to its own teachings rather than the other way around.

They started by changing themselves first. This in turn inspired change in others.

Witch hunts were BTW Protestant, not Catholic.

The woman from John 4 was not a priest.  You do not have to be a priest to convert others.

“When was the last time you heard a priest or bishop do that?”

You have very different social circles. This still happens just not in the West anymore, because we have turned our backs on God.

The question, I have for you is why do you even want a priest?

I am tired of liberals waiting for the church to change and conservatives waiting for liberals to change. Become the saint God created you to be. Then we might listen Trebert or to Fr. Roy. This is just political talk.