Fr. Roy inväntar Vatikanens svar

Och det gör även jag...

Fyller på med lite spridda kommentarer i originalinlägget allt eftersom jag hittar dem. Samtal pågår ännu omkring brevet i bloggosfären. Har inriktat mig på att svara där, därför har det varit lite tyst här ett par dar.

Nedan ett utdrag ur den senaste artikeln i NCR.

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"In recent years, Bourgeois included in the list of causes for which he advocated opposition to the ban on women’s ordination, an issue he considered a matter of injustice within the church.

His activism in that regard culminated in August when he accepted an invitation to participate in an ordination ceremony in Lexington, Ky., for Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a longtime peace activist who was once arrested for performing civil disobedience at Fort Benning, and a longtime proponent of women’s ordination.

Sevre-Duszynska, the sixth U.S. woman ordained this year as a part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, made national news as early as 1998 when she interrupted an ordination ceremony at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Lexington and asked for ordination. “I am called by the Holy Spirit to present myself for ordination,” she said.

It was that call that Bourgeois said he had heard described by a number of women that convinced him that women were being wrongly excluded from the sacrament of ordination.

In his response to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bourgeois wrote: “When I was a young man in the military, I felt God was calling me to the priesthood. I entered Maryknoll and was ordained in 1972.

“Over the years I have met a number of women in our church who, like me, feel called by God to the priesthood. You, our church leaders at the Vatican, tell us that women cannot be ordained.”

He argues that the church’s position “does not stand up to scrutiny” and cites a Pontifical Biblical Commission report of 1976 that he claims “supports the research of scripture scholars, canon lawyers and many faithful Catholics who have studied and pondered the scriptures and have concluded that there is no justification in the Bible for excluding women from the priesthood.”

He argued that the current leadership “implies our loving and all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, somehow cannot empower a woman to be a priest.”

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Bourgeois said he hopes that should the next response from Rome confirm his worst fears, that he is excommunicated, that he would be allowed 15 minutes with Pope Benedict XVI and with Cardinal William Levada, head of the congregation on doctrine, to explain his position.

His future status with Maryknoll remains unclear. A spokesperson for the order has said he will remain a member, though unable to function as a priest, unless the Vatican imposes a further punishment that would prohibit his membership."

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