Automatic Excommunication for Women "Priestettes"

(AGI) - Vatican City, May 29 - A woman being consecrated as priest besides being invalid, automatically leads to the excommunication of the consecrating bishop and the consecrated woman.

A decree issued by the Congregation for Religious Doctrine published today by the 'Osservatore Romano' establishes this.

"The Congregation for Religious Doctrine, to protect the nature and validity of the sacrament of the holy order, in virtue of the special faculty to be consecrated by the supreme authority decrees that both the one trying to consecrate a woman in the holy order, and the woman who has tried to receive the holy order, will be excommunicated 'latae sententiae', reserved to the Apostolic See".

Such decree is true for all rites in communion with Rome. The text continues that

"if he who has tried to consecrate a woman in the holy order or if the woman who has tried to receive the holy order is a faithful subject of the Code of the Rules of the Oriental Churches, he or she will be punished by excommunication, pardon can only be given by the Apostolic See".

The decree, specifies the former Holy See,

"will come into immediate force from the moment of publication in the 'Osservatore Romano'".

Source