FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 9, 2006

CONTACTS: Nidza Vázquez: office: 703 352-1006, cell: 202 422-2235, nvazquez@womensordination.org

Bridget Mary Meehan: home: 703 671-1972, cell: 703 283-2929

Roman Catholic bishops threaten ordained women with excommunication

Washington, D.C. – Three Roman Catholic women, Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg of Milwaukee, Eileen McCafferty DiFranco of Philadelphia, and Bridget Mary Meehan of Arlington, Va., who were ordained as priests in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 31, have received letters from their bishops. The letters sent to Vandenberg and Meehan stated that the women have excommunicated themselves. The letter sent to DiFranco in late June from Cardinal Justin Rigali indicated that she was a public scandal. Statements from the diocese of Pittsburgh and Arlington, released before the ordinations, declared that anyone who attended the ordinations would separate themselves from the Catholic Church.

“A little-known but time honored principle in the Roman Catholic Church states that the community’s reception of a proposed law is decisive. When the community does not accept a law, it has no force of law,” stated Aisha Taylor, WOC’s Executive Director. “We, as the community of believers, together with the 64 per cent of U.S. Catholics who support women’s ordination, are saying that Canon 1024, which states that only men can receive the sacrament of ordination, is unjust and we do not accept it. Since we do not accept the law, it has no bearing on us. We are not bound by it and we cannot be punished by it. We have not excommunicated ourselves,” Taylor asserted.

“In addition, Canon 27 states, ‘custom is the best interpreter of law.’ If you look at the way Catholics are living out our faith today, you will see women have taken on many priestly roles and new customs are forming,” Taylor continued. “In fact, we are returning to the customs of the early Church. Recent scholarship has revealed that women were ordained in the first thousand years of the church. Why should we only hold the second half of the church’s history as the custom by which we interpret the law?”

“The Catholic Church has a long history of condemning visionary, prophetic women. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and declared a heretic, only to be later declared a saint. It is my hope that one day we too will be proclaimed by the church we love as women who led the church to a new era of justice and equality for all the People of God,” stated Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan, Sister for Christian Community, who was one of eight women ordained as priests in Pittsburgh, Pa.

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Founded in 1975, Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) is the world’s oldest and largest organization working for the ordination ofwomen as priests, deacons and bishops into a renewed priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. For more information, visit www.womensordination.org

Roman Catholic Womenpriests works to bring about the full equality of women in the Roman Catholic Church and strives for a new model of Priestly Ministry. For more information, visit www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org