ROME — Catholic women seeking to become priests denounced the church’s ban on female ordination as sexist and unjust, bringing their campaign close to the Vatican on Wednesday during a worldwide gathering of bishops.
The small group of women representing Catholic organizations from around the world marched across the Tiber River close to St. Peter’s Square, some wearing signs with the names of prominent women in the early days of the Roman Catholic Church.
“Ordain Women! Ordain Women!” the woman chanted. They later tried to deliver a petition to the Swiss Guards at the Vatican, but nobody came to pick it up.
Aisha Taylor, the executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference in the United States, said the women wanted to call attention to the issue during the synod, a meeting of 253 bishops under way. [article]
Reminds me of the hilarious Envoy Magazine piece that had the names for some future encyclicals including:
Amen Amen Dico Vobis; Nihil Muliebrium Sacerdotum (Read My Lips: No Women Priests) Encyclical asking radical Catholic feminists what part of Pope John Paul the Great’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (on the reservation of holy orders to men alone) they don’t understand.
Rursus Dicam: Nullo Modo (I’ll Say It Again: No Way) Encyclical explaining the pope’s position on women priests even more plainly.
PRINCETON, NJ, October 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Princeton’s Stuart Country Day School, a Catholic school, has disinvited former New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman as the keynote speaker for a women’s leadership forum at the request of Bishop John Smith, who warned against the scandal that would be caused by inviting the famously pro-abortion political figure.
Bishop Smith of the Trenton diocese cited the section in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” that condemns abortion and euthanasia as intrinsically evil and insupportable.
“Governor Whitman has made it her position over the years that she is pro-choice, and so supports a position totally contrary to official Catholic teaching,” Bishop Smith wrote in a letter addressed to the school’s headmistress, Sister Frances de la Chapelle of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Bishop Smith urged the school to reverse the invitation, which “may well mislead your students, parents and faculty to falsely conclude that the Church tolerates the pro-choice position.”
The school subsequently cancelled the woman’s leadership forum altogether. In a statement concerning the cancellation, Sister de la Chapelle said, “We are saddened that our students, and the wider community, will not be enriched by the lively discussion and critical thinking that surely would have resulted from Governor Whitman’s lecture on leadership, values, and the environment.”
“I ask that we pray for our Church, Governor Whitman, and ourselves at this time,” said the headmistress. [article]
And I might add for the headmistress also that apparently had no problem with a governor who vetoed a partial birth abortion ban. Thank you Bishop John Smith!
In other news Bishop Steinbeck talks about Fr. Farrow who recently came out against the Proposition 8 in California during Mass.
Farrow’s comments contradict statements made by the head of the U.S. federal government’s genome project, Dr. Francis S. Collins, who points out that studies of identical twins prove that “sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.” Identical twins, who share the same DNA, share a homosexual orientation in only 20 percent of cases, according to Collins.
Fresno’s Bishop John T. Steinbock responded to Farrow’s statements in a press release stating, “Proposition 8 is not about gay or lesbian orientation, or their legal rights. Proposition 8 is a reaffirmation of the nature of marriage. Proposition 8 reaffirms the dignity of the special covenant between one man and one woman which has been the building block of the church and of society since time immemorial.”
Bishop Steinbock also defended the Church’s right to speak out on political issues. “Some say that the Church has no place in American politics. That is absolutely untrue. The Church never involves itself in telling people to vote for a political candidate or party. But it does have the moral responsibility to speak out strongly on moral issues when these relate to propositions on our ballot,” he said.
He added, “The Church has a right and obligation to speak out on issues of faith and morals. This means speaking out on important issues affecting family life and the common good.”
In an interview before the mass at which he intended to announce his dissent, Farrow was directly asked by Fresno’s ABC affiliate if he was “gay,” to which he responded “It’s a secondary issue. But yes, I am.”
Farrow had apparently cleared out his office in anticipation of the event, and disappeared following the mass. As of Monday, Bishop Steinbeck still had not spoken to Farrow, but asked for prayers for him and all of the diocese’s priests, as well as for priestly vocations. [article]
10/5/2008 Fresno, CA, USA (KFSN) — Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center in northeast Fresno shocked parishioners Sunday morning when he came out against Proposition 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right for same sex couples to marry in California.
After 23 years as an ordained Catholic Priest, Father Geoffrey Farrow has likely given his final mass. Sunday morning he invited us to hear his message, a message that shocked many parishioners.
11 o’clock mass began as usual Sunday. Father Geoff led parishioners through prayer and communion.
The homily taught of acceptance, love and rejection. But it was his closing remarks that left some parishioners stunned. “What most Catholics hear about being gay or lesbian at their parish is silence,”
Fr. Geoff says after numerous inquiries from parishioners asking for direction on Proposition 8, if passed would ban gay marriage, the Father said he must go against the Bishops recommendation and instead go with what he feels is right.
“In directing the faithful to vote yes on proposition 8, the California Bishops are not only entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements by the church itself that homosexual is innate,” says Fr. Geoff.
Well I guess he has a thorough understanding of Church teaching as he has on what she has said about homosexuality. That is a lousy understanding. The Church has made no statements about homosexuality being innate. This is a scientific question and one the Church will never weigh in on. The consistent teaching of the Church is that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil.
We sat down with Father Geoff before mass, and he answered the question many are probably wondering… Is he gay? “It’s a secondary issue. But yes, I am. And when I was a boy I asked God please make me normal and the prayer never got answered and I realized why. Because God would’ve made somebody else he wouldn’t have made me.”
What a surprise that once again a priest who stands up at Mass and talks about homosexuality being acceptable themselves have same-sex attraction. Funny how we never hear an alcoholic priest give a homily about how alcoholism is okay. But this is what happens when society calls a sin acceptable and it makes it harder for those suffering to acknowledge the truth.
Sunday mass ended with about half the congregation giving a standing ovation. Outside parishioners had mixed reaction about the priest’s remarks.
Bishop John Steinbock has not yet talked to Father Geoff, but surely that will come soon.
Hat Tip Fr. James Martin S.J.
Via Fr. Joe
Fr. Francis Mary Stone left EWTN and his ministry last year, explaining that he needed time to discern his life direction and vocation. There was a woman in the picture, a widow he had counseled and her family. I suppose, the truth be said, he had already burned his bridges behind him, but that is for him to say (or not) in the days ahead. RIGHT NOW, it appears that he is having to face the cold reality that husbands and fathers have to provide for their families. Continue to pray for him and all involved.
Here is his site and it certainly looks authentic. While it is always sad when a priest falls it is even sadder when they do so and promote organic nutritional drinks “Zrii, the nutritional supplement of those Living Life on the Rock!“
A Rome priest is fighting for his life after being stabbed in the neck and stomach by a deranged man who had just watched the film The Da Vinci Code on television.
Eyewitnesses said that Marco Luzi, 25, asked to see Father Canio Canistri, 68, parish priest at the church of Santa Marcella in the San Saba district on the Aventine Hill, and then attacked him with a knife hidden in a cloth. An elderly parishioner who came to the priest’s aid is also in serious condition.
A Peruvian childminder and a policeman were also injured as the assailant fled through a nearby park. Police said Mr Luzi, a former medical student with a history of psychiatric problems, had admitted watching the film version of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code on television the night before the frenzied assault.
At his flat nearby, where he lived with his mother Paola, investigators found material on the Apocalypse and the anti-Christ, and the telephone number of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
There was also a large reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, which is at the heart of the mystery in The Da Vinci Code, with a note pointing to one of the disciples reading: “This is the hand in which a knife is hidden”.
and
AN elderly Sydney priest who disarmed an intruder says he thought it was either “me or him” when he confronted the man in the church presbytery.
Father John Mello, 72, was stabbed in the arm while taking a knife from a robber less than half his age at St Kevin’s Catholic Church at Dee Why, on Sydney’s northern beaches.
The priest was having dinner and reading the paper about 7.20pm (AEST) yesterday when he heard something and disturbed the intruder, aged between 25-30.
Fr Mello said when he confronted the man, wearing a balaclava and armed with a knife about 25 to 30cm long, he was “vividly conscious” he could be “horizontal in one second”, and acted automatically to disarm his attacker.
URBANA, Ill. (AP) A Catholic priest on the University of Illinois campus has been charged with selling cocaine from his church office and rectory.
The Reverend Christopher Layden pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of delivery of less than 1 gram of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a church and one count of possession with intent to deliver 1 to 15 grams of cocaine near a church.
The 33-year-old was arrested Wednesday at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center after investigators found 3 grams of cocaine and drug paraphernalia while searching his home and office. His bond was set at $50,000.
The Catholic Diocese of Peoria says it has suspended Layden.
It is sad when a priest succumbs to substance abuse, but dealing? There has to be a Newman Center joke in here somewhere.
Melbourne, Aug 30 (ANI): A catholic priest, who claims that his back yard full of cannabis plants is a gift from God, has been placed under constant surveillance by police.
Father Cyril Papudov, of Petrich, Bulgaria, has been arrested seven times but police have never caught him actually cultivating the crop.
He insists that the cannabis seeded by itself and is part of God’s gift of nature and nothing to do with him.
"There has been a great deal of suspicion over the years about what is going on with these plants," Daily Telegraph quoted police, as saying.
"He is a man of the cloth and so a lot of people don’t want to think badly of him but frankly if someone has a huge crop of cannabis in their back garden it’s highly unlikely they are just sitting there admiring its horticultural properties," the police added.
Several readers sent me in the following story.
ROME — An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.
The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.
"Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life," Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. "This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible."
Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, said that visitors to his site will have a month to "vote for the nun they consider a model."
Nuns will fill out a profile including information about their life and vocation as well as a photograph. It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.
"We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits," Rungi said by telephone from his town of Mondragone. "But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn’t hide it."
Rungi said the idea was first suggested to him by nuns with whom he regularly prays and works. He hopes there will be dozens of submissions once the Web site is started.
The contest drew criticism from the association of Catholic teachers.
"It’s an initiative that belittles the role of nuns who have dedicated themselves to God," the group’s president, Alberto Giannino, told Italy’s ANSA news agency on Sunday.
I wonder if they will have a pantsuit competition or is that reserved for American nun beauty contests (what a scary image)? This though is such a bad idea on so many levels. If you think bit nuns are being "marginalized in ecclesiastical life" why in the world would you marginalize them further. This story is getting coverage because everyone immediately realizes how silly this is. How about a spiritual beauty contest? "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." Though trying to book God to be a judge at a spiritual beauty contest is rather difficult and he is the only one fully qualified.
The contest is now canceled.