Women Bishops in the Catholic Church, Too? Some Are Trying

According to Church authorities, ordinations of women are invalid, and those who perform them are excommunicated. Meanwhile, fifty women have already received sacred orders. The latest sensational case is from Saint Louis. Countermeasures by the Vatican...
by Sandro Magister
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...the theater of the latest ordination of Roman Catholic Womenpriests was Saint Louis. On November 11, 2007, in the Central Reform Synagogue headed by Rabbi Susan Talve, the female bishop Patricia Fresen, a former Dominican sister who had studied at the Angelicum in Rome, ordained two women to the priesthood, Rose Marie Dunn Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath (see photo). The ceremony was attended by about six hundred people, including an active supporter of the ordination, Sister Louise Lears, a member of the pastoral council of the parish of Saint Cronan, and the coordinator of religious education in the archdiocese.

During the ritual, a dozen Protestant pastors also laid their hands on the two women being ordained, concelebrated the Mass, and received communion.

There is, finally, the suspicion that some of the bishops are assisting the operation. Patricia Fresen, the former sister who is one of the four bishops of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, affirms that she was ordained to the episcopate in 2005 by three Catholic bishops whose names she is keeping secret. The same is thought to be the case for the other three women bishops of the movement.

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