Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Archbishop Burke Issues Warning of Automatic Excommunication

From the Post Dispatch:
St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has warned two Roman Catholic women that if they go through with a planned ordination Sunday, they will be automatically excommunicated for an act of schism.

The two women, Elsie Hainz McGrath (pictured right) and Rose Marie Hudson (on the left) , are scheduled to be ordained as priests of an organization called Roman Catholic Womenpriests at Central Reform Congregation, a synagogue in St. Louis. Only men are ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic church.

In letters delivered by courier to the two women Monday evening, Burke admonished them "to renounce your intention to attempt to receive priestly ordination" and "to retract publicly any denial or contrary affirmation regarding the Church’s Catholic Doctrine...that women cannot validly receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders."

The archbishop continued: "Should you refuse to comply, in order to protect the faithful from grave spiritual deception...you will incur automatically...the censure of excommunication..."

The archdiocese would not comment on the letters Wednesday, saying that all correspondence from the archbishop is private.
Here it comes!

Source

The Archdiocese of St Louis has more on this here, titled "The Nature of Priestly Ordination: Theological Background and Some Present Concerns"

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