Somebody questioned the validity of the ordination, and this is the answer from the prospective Womanpriest: Dear Denis, The Vatican still holds to the belief that women, because of their composition as females (and lack of a particular appendage), cannot serve in a ministerial capacity. That wasn't always true, and our movement for women's ordination within the Roman Catholic Church has been ordaining women and others who are shut out of the church, including LGBTQ and married applicants, provided they complete the theological studies required. The first six women were ordained by a male archbishop in international waters in the Danube... his identity is not known in the outside world, and I won't find out who he is until my ordination, and then am sworn to secrecy. Father Roy Bourgeois, who founded SOAW, (the School of the Americas Watch) was excommunicated for attending and supporting the ordination of a woman priest (who happens to have been my program companion throughout this period while I was studying for ordination). In early times women were ordained, there are mentions of deaconesses, and in the Catacombs the Priscilla Catacomb shows women wearing the garb and clearly ministering. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150224-the-secrets-of-the-catacombs Francis, who is doing amazing work with the original intent of the Palestinian Jew who was a subversive fighter against Empire, has called a commission to study bringing back female deacons. He can only do so much, and I am grateful for the work he is doing. I am a liberation theology child... I learned liberation theology from a priest in the Dominican Republic, was born and lived in Cuba at the time of the Revolution, and went to college in Puerto Rico, where the CIA was a constant companion... For me there is no problem with being a social activist and anarchist/socialist revolutionary and being Roman Catholic, but I think the Roman Catholic Church is wrong on this issue, and an old but still valid concept, the primacy of conscience, allows me to choose to serve now, in whatever way I can. Of course, technically, the official RC Church says that by serving as ordained ministers we are "excommunicating ourselves." Silvia
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