ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia priest facing excommunication for supporting the ordination of women said Friday he plans to visit the Vatican with a contingent of fellow priests and a bishop to appeal the decision.
Roy Bourgeois, 69, a Maryknoll priest and nationally known peace activist, ran afoul of Vatican doctrine by participating in an Aug. 9 ceremony in Lexington, Ky., to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Recent popes have said the Roman Catholic Church cannot ordain women because Christ chose only males as apostles.
“Who are we as men to say to women that our call to the priesthood is valid, but yours is not?” Bourgeois said in a telephone interview. “As Catholics we profess that the invitation to priesthood comes from God, and I believe that we are hampering with the sacred when we say that women must be excluded from being priests. That invitation is from God.” [article]
Well who are you as a priest to set yourself up against the magisterium? Though I guess he must get to look through God’s mail since he says these invitations are from God. Vocations are routed through Fr. Bourgeois or at least he gets CC’ed.
Bourgeois said the toughest part of the ordeal was informing his 95-year-old father, a devout Roman Catholic. He said he drove to his family’s home in Lutcher, La., near New Orleans, to tell him, and that his father shed tears and then told his family that God had protected Bourgeois before, and would continue to today.
“When he said God will take care of him, I wept,” said Bourgeois.
I find this very sad. It is always good to remember the human side of the equation and even though father here is in error, like almost all sin and thus error it is pursued as a good. Sincerity does not protect you from being sincerely wrong and maybe it is more than coincidence that sincerity starts with “sin”. Once again we see the use of “devout” by the media as someone who opposes the Church in some fashion.
As for his seeking an appeal from the CDF, good luck with that. It is not the CDF that needs to repent of a mistake.
Canon Lawyer Ed Peters recent posted on this and said “I suspect that a penal decree here will not only impose an excommunication, it will also lay the groundwork for a fairly expeditious dismissal from the clerical state.”
If Fr. Bourgeois does get dismissed from the clerical state, at least it will not mean a change of wardrobe for him. Seriously though please pray for him.
22 comments
I like that the article says that “recent popes have said that the Catholic Church can only ordain men” like this was some new “recent” idea. I usually feel sorry for the hapless reporter who gets these stories dropped on their desks. Reminds me of the one who said that Pope John Paul 2 was holding a “crow’s ear”. As for Bourgeois, he not only opens God’s mail, he edits it.
Nice try Joel, but that passage does not blow the male-only priesthood out of the water like you think it does. And your comparison to cars and shoes doesn’t float either. Our Lord had both women and men followers, and since He had no qualms about busting societal norms, we would fully expect Him to bust this one, but he didn’t. Not that that is the only argument of course.
And call no man father? Trotting out a tired staple of anti-Catholic Protestantism? Tsk tsk. For anyone interested, try http://www.catholic.com/library/Call_No_Man_Father.asp
Bottom line: insisting on women priests only leads to bitterness.
It is interesting that the Church never actually excommunicates someone. According to canon law, a person excommunicates themselves, though at times the church feels it opportune to inform the person that they have indeed excommunicated themselves. It is sad when a priest does not know what it means to be a priest. And yet, it is not entirely his fault, I suspect. I wonder if anyone ever told him what it meant to be one.
Scott,
The early church in the choosing of Mathias also wanted to follow Jesus in every way; that is re-instate the twelve. They thought that number was theologically important. Where are our the twelve today? So, we are not following Jesus exactly as he did – because he did not mean for us to.
And the “call no man father” remark was not a blow to Catholicism as you thought it was. I call my priest father. It is just an interesting note that we in fact do not do all things that Jesus did or “commanded.”
Scott, I don’t feel you’ve made a good argument against female priests. I am betwixt and between on it because I think it’s hard enough for someone to follow their calling without dealing with the first-woman-to-do-THIS thing, which I think requires a focus that is deliberately not on serving the Lord. I relegate this issue to something that I don’t feel strongly enough about to “work on,” and since I don’t want to be one, I don’t worry about it. I also am way past going to Church to feel/get validated (something I think is a common error of those who insist having women priests would be better for the Church because people would see someone who looks like them on the altar); I go to worship. But Joel raises some fair questions. I think the argument against has to be stronger than saying his arguments aren’t that strong.
Also, the thing you said about insisting on women priests only leads to bitterness… for who? And why? There is either a good reason or there isn’t.
I’d be happy if we could get our priests to see that abortion is an evil and abetting it is a big problem.
Scott, I don’t feel you’ve made a good argument against female priests
I wasn’t trying to make an full argument against female priests, just dismantling the absurdity that because the early Church didn’t have certain things, that means innovations to the Sacraments are ok. It doesn’t matter one whit if the apostles wanted to fill out the twelve with Mathias–the fact that they ordained bishops and passed on their authority is the decisive fact. Ordaining women simply never figured. We don’t need to mind read, we simply look at what they did and said.
As far as the bitterness, it is inevitable when one insists on trying to keep open a shut case. As was put in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html which was issued “in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
Even then the question arose whether this belonged to the Deposit of Faith and it was answered in the affirmative. Now, I’ll admit I’m not too worried in the sense that the naysayers have no leg to stand on and have been reduced to the infallibility regress argument and some hinky ideas like a guy I read who said male-only priesthood was fine, but the Church has not formally defined what maleness is. Such things show the hopelessness of the position, BUT people like the priest in the story can are still capable of great damage to the unwary faithful.
Antonio,
Actually there are at two forms of excommunication. Latæ and Ferendæ Sententiæ. Latae (automatic) are those defined in Canon law and the person incurs them automatically when the violate the specified canon such as procuring or performing an abortion.
Ferendæ Sententiæ are those given by ecclesial authorities. In the case of the priest here it is Ferendæ Sententiæ excommunication.
Joel,
Are you serious about the call no man father thing? Common Protestant objection that is quite easily handled especially since Jesus also said call not man teacher, but no one seems to bring that up. Jesus was talking in a way to remind us that it is God who is both are true father and teacher. That all human fathers and teachers take their cue from him.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Call_No_Man_Father.asp
“You say we should not have women priests because “Jesus only choose men.” Perhaps priests should also stop driving cars or wearing shoes
too because after all Jesus didn’t have any of these things either. Not all practices of Jesus were meant to be normative for all time.”
Again I wonder if you are serious. Are you not aware of Apostolic tradition being passed on or the fact that nobody ordained women in the early church or beyond? All of the Church fathers writing on this topic noted it was not possible to ordain women. They often brought up the fact that Mary would have been the perfect priest if Jesus intended to ordain women. Yet we had no women priests in the early church or women bishops. Rather strange considering that all cultures around them had women clergy. This was also true in Old Testament times, yet there were not women Temple priests either despite every religion around them having priestesses. Early Councils and other documents also point to not being able to ordain women.
So I would invite you to seriously look at what the magisterium teaches. I would especially ask you to read Sister Butler’s book “The Catholic Priesthood and Women” She was once for women’s ordination until she realized all of the arguments supporting it were deeply flawed. She gives a great defense of the Church’s teaching while also answering every objection to it.
http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/2007/05/catholic-priest-1.php
Joel,
Try to use some logic. If you are not Catholic, then say so and we’ll understand the background of your position.
If you are Catholic, one of the main articles of our Faith is that the Church, as established by Jesus and embodied in the Catholic Church headed by the Pope, does provide us with the correct teaching as willed by God. Since the issue of the ineligibility of women to holy orders has been clearly and consistently explained and taught by the Church, any other argument against it is faulty. If you want to know why, fine, ask and you shall find the answers. But if you, like Fr. Bourgeois, think that you are right and the Church is wrong and you want to convince us of that, you are wasting your time.
Even heretics have their usefulness. This is one of those teachable moments when we witness the Faith taking a hit (by the confused or willfully disobedient), but then the orthodox hit back.
Yes the historical record, which is also a pedagogical record, is clear: women cannot be priests and therefore may not be priests. People have brains, use them. The internet is replete with resources – there are good ones listed in the comments above. As my mom said, first try to find the answer yourself instead of asking someone else to do the work for you. I am constantly astonished that so many adults (in my college classes) don’t employ some basic skills, e.g., like the ability to open their textbook, and the ability to read.
An honest inquiry begins with just that – honesty.
As for those who have settled on the weak arguments in favour of women’s ordination – look further! You do yourself a great disservice. To surrender the quest for truth is to surrender to lies, and the wimmin preest organizations are indeed promoting lies. Don’t take my word for it – start reading history,… uh, a history not varnished by revisionist sentiments.
Unfortunately, a big problem is the article’s misrepresentation of the Catholic position regarding ‘female priests.’ As Pope John Paul II said in “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis”, The Church has no authority to ordain women. That is quite a far cry from the simplistic ‘factoid’ given in the article that the Church cannot ordain women because Christ only chose men. For yes, it is true that Christ only chose men, but that is not the only reason women cannot be ordained. The way the article expresses it seems to me to fan the whole “behind-the-times-patriarchical-unfair-to-women-gotta-change-to-21st-century-fairness-justice-and-equality” falsehood regarding the whole subject of ordination to the typical feminist flame of “Unfair! Unfair”!
I didn’t realize that Fr. Bourgeois walked into one of my favored hobbyhorses: Exposing massive error regarding what conscience is and what it does:
Conscience is very sacred. Conscience gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing. Conscience is what compelled Franz Jagerstatter, a humble Austrian farmer, husband and father of four young children, to refuse to join Hitler’s army, which led to his execution. Conscience is what compelled Rosa Parks to say she could no longer sit in the back of the bus. Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood. Conscience is what compelled my dear mother and father, now 95, to always strive to do the right things as faithful Catholics raising four children. And after much prayer, reflection and discernment, it is my conscience that compels me to do the right thing. I cannot recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church.
As Fr. Williams said when exposing this error:
Many today appeal to conscience as the final arbiter of good and evil. By this view of conscience, good and evil do not exist outside of our moral judgment, but are created by it. What I sincerely judge to be good and right becomes good and right because of that judgment. Sincerity is all that matters. By this logic, it makes no sense to try to tell someone else what is good or right, even, for example, if you are the Church’s magisterium. In the end, conscience would not apply an objective moral law that stands above it, but would supplant the moral law. Conscience would trump everything.
I think these “women priests” are a slap in the face to so many kind, holy, and generous sisters who have consecrated their lives to Christ. Orders like the Nashville Dominicans or the Sisters of Reparation are full of joyful women who pour out themselves in the service of others. These sisters are tending to souls without any need of ordination to make them feel equal or fulfilled as women.
Scott, thanks for your response and the link.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Gal 3:28.
This Scripture continues to be used over, and over, and over. I’m just not sure why. It’s completely out of context when used to support female ordination.
Modern Biblical scholarship has grown weary and suspicious of such proof-texting.
Anyway, here is some good information on why the Church cannot ordain women to the priesthood: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/what_you_need_to_know/index.cfm?id=55
‘he gets CC’d’ man, that cracked me up! :o)
Knowing that many of the world’s Catholics are deprived of the weekly Eucharist due to a shortage of priests, I find it somewhat exasperating that so much energy is expended excluding from ministry those who are called to service. The elephant in the living room is the no-brainer of permitting the ordination of married men, since there is no theological or doctrinal reason for not doing so. Surely the church may attach disciplines to the prebyteral order, yet to do so at the expense of an effective denial of communion to vast numbers of the faithful is unjust. The theological hurdles imposed by the question of the ordination of women would be readily surmountable if those in authority were willing to do so. We frankly don’t know if Jesus’s choice to not select women as disciples was an indication of his determination that only men be ordained, first because the early apostles were in a par with bishops, the the presbyteral “downsized” version had not yet been invented by the church. We know also that great powers of discretion were given to the church (e.g., to bind and loose) in order to adapt to ever changing needs. Also, and most obviously, since it is impossible to prove a negative, no one can be sure what Jesus did not want. I am confident that at some time in the future, when church leaders are more open to the spirit and not filled with fear and tempted by power and possessons, we will see the return of a much more widely practiced ordination of married men (more than the 100 or so we now have in the US), and that we will also have the ordination of qualified women.
This was one of the most puzzling things for me when I was coming in the Church; having been raised in a Protestant denomination with many female pastors it felt a bit odd to me, at first. However, aside from the “respect for the Magisterium” (including JPII’s “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis”) issue, which is hugely important on its own, the piece of the puzzle that finally made sense to me was the way Christopher West applied Theology of the Body to the priesthood and celibate life.
The Church is the Bride of Christ. Jesus is her Bridegroom. During Mass (and other times, of course) the priest acts in persona Christi making Christ present by acting as Christ. The Bridegroom meets the Bride. This doesn’t work if a woman were to become a priest. A Bride (a woman priest) can’t facilitate the union with another Bride (the Church, or local parish). It just doesn’t work. The complementarity that runs throughout Scripture is missing. From the Old Testament up through today, God makes it clear that he wants to “marry” humanity; to be the world’s (a his Bride, via the Church’s) Bridegroom. In order for that to happen Jesus came to consummate that relationship on Calvary, which is represented everyday at Mass by a man through whom Jesus is acting. Thus, the Church has not authority to consecrate women as priests because the most important thing a priest does is celebrate the Sacraments and the image of Jesus’ union with us through the Church can’t work with a woman as a priest. By no means is a a slam against women; the Church isn’t saying that women don’t have the intelligence or the pastoral skills, but rather that it’s just not possible. Similarly, a man can’t be a mother. He just can’t. He might have the compassion and love and self-sacrifice and intelligence necessary to be a mother, but it ain’t gonna happen.
I hope that isn’t too muddled; it’s much more beautifully explained by Chris West, so check out his stuff 🙂
Thanks to Jeff Miller for his clarification on Canon Law.
Hey Al, not only can women not BE priests, they can’t even be CALLED to be priests, just like I can’t be CALLED to be a priest, being a married man. Its not possible in the latin rite.
But what does continue to puzzle me is why these women, who wrongly think that they are being called to the priesthood, still attend a latin rite mass. I don’t think I could attend mass at any church where I just knew the leaders were so flawed in their theology. IF they think we are so wrong why don’t they go down the street to the church that, I’m pretty sure, fits their beliefs to a “t”… the episcople church. I’m sure they’d be glad to have them.
Warren’s comment was the best:
“People have brains, use them.”
I think many people today simply don’t know how to make or recognize a good argument. Maybe it is “argument relativism”: My argument is as good as yours because it’s MY argument. Whereas, of course, arguments can be judged objectively. Or maybe it’s simply that people confuse emotion and sincerity with logic and reason: I feel this strongly so it is right.
Evaluating an argument is a vital, but rarely valued, skill. I know because, although I was a top student, I have had to learn it.
Al,
Thank you for another beautiful example of superficial analysis. Although it is true that priestly celibacy is a discipline limited to the Latin rite that could be changed, it is NOT true that it has no theological basis and it is highly arguable whether it is the solution to the shortage of priests.
Much has been written on that too, just go and find out. In a nut shell, the argument that allowing priests to marry would increase their numbers runs contrary to tons of evidence. Rather, ask yourself, when was the last time you or anyone you know encouraged a young boy to become a priest? When was the last time that you (or anyone you know) depicted the priesthood as a desirable mission because of, not despite of, its countercultural goals?
If you have, congratulations! But if you didn’t, please know that you are not alone, because that is the real main cause of the shortage. When we, laypeople, in our families and communities will start presenting the priesthood as an honor and a call of the highest order, then we shall help those who are called to respond positively and we’ll have more priests.