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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 30, 2008
Media Contact: Erin Saiz Hanna, 703 352-1006, woc@womensordination.org
Women's Ordination Conference Statement on Vatican Decree of Immediate Excommunication of Ordained Women
Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference,
issued the following statement about the Vatican's decree that ordained
Roman Catholic women and the bishops who ordained them incur latae
sententiae excommunication, which means excommunication that is
immediate and self-imposed.
The Women's
Ordination Conference is outraged by yesterday’s Vatican decree, which
reminds Catholic women once again of the animosity they face from the
hierarchy, despite being the backbone of most Catholic parishes
throughout the world.
Out of fear of the
growing numbers of ordained women and the overwhelming support they are
receiving, the Vatican is trying to preserve what little power they
have left by attempting to extinguish the widespread call for women’s
equality in the church. It will not work. In the face of one closed
door after another, Catholic women will continue to make a way when
there is none.
We reject the notion of
excommunication. In our efforts to ordain women into an inclusive and
accountable Roman Catholic Church, we see it as contrary to the gospel
itself to excommunicate people who are doing good works and responding
to injustice and the needs of their communities. While the hierarchy
prattles on about excommunication, Catholic women are working for
justice and making a positive difference in the world.
This inappropriate use of excommunication and the Vatican’s stance on
ordination are based on arguments that have been refuted time and
again. In 1976, the Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission
determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women’s
ordination. Jesus included women as full and equal partners in his
ministry, and so should the hierarchy.
The call
for women’s equality in the Catholic Church is reverberating loudly in
the public consciousness. Around the world, over sixty women have been
ordained as priests, deacons or bishops by the group called Roman
Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP), and there are nearly 100 women in the
RCWP preparation program. There are 16 national organizations from 11
different countries that advocate women’s ordination, and the vast
majority of US Catholics support the ordination of women.
The
refusal to ordain women is nothing more than an egregious manifestation
of sexism in the church. It is time for the Vatican to listen to its
own research, its own theologians and its own people who say that women
are equally created in the image of God and are called to serve as
priests in a renewed and inclusive Catholic Church.
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Founded
in 1975, the Women's Ordination Conference is the oldest and largest
national organization that works to ordain women as priests, deacons
and bishops into an inclusive and accountable Catholic Church. WOC
represents the 63-70 percent of US Catholics that support the
ordination of women as priests. WOC also promotes new perspectives on
ordination that call for more accountability and less separation
between the clergy and laity.
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