UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Jason Berry | Nov. 10, 2012
Atlanta —
Diane Dougherty, 67, who has short silver hair and stands barely 5 feet tall, became a fleeting media sensation Oct. 20 with her ordination in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.
The forces that drove Dougherty to profess priestly vows are a parable of today’s church, as divided in America as in Europe, where 144 theologians in Germany, Austria and Switzerland signed a 2011 declaration defying Pope Benedict XVI in support of women’s ordination. Dougherty, who spent 23 years as a nun earlier in her life, followed a pull of conscience to “the same basic calling” in violation of church law.
Five other women, well along the road of middle life, were ordained as deacons in the same Mass held at First Metropolitan Community Church, which historically serves gays and lesbians. Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop affiliated with the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, came from her home in Virginia to preside. About 300 people attended, among them relatives of the newly ordained, a few scampering grandchildren; groups from Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Louisiana; 15 other women priests in the movement; and two women in black robes of the Episcopal clergy. …
“It means that excommunication takes place immediately,” New Jersey canon lawyer Fr. Kenneth Lasch told NCR.
“There is a hitch, though,” said canonist Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle. “Automatic excommunication basically means that it is not publicized. Only the excommunicated one knows it for sure and is obliged in conscience to observe the penalty. … Most of the women priests I have helped were concerned [about the excommunication] and then got to the point — a healthy one, I think — where it did not matter.”
Legion battles
The same Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document singles out clerics who molest children “to be punished according to the gravity of his crime, not excluding dismissal” from the priesthood. In 2006 the Vatican ordered the Legion of Christ founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, a notorious pedophile who fathered children with two women, to “a reserved life of prayer and penitence.” Maciel, who died in 2008, was never excommunicated.
The Legion, which now functions under a unique Vatican receivership, faces a lawsuit in Connecticut over alleged incest by Maciel. Another lawsuit in Rhode Island, accusing the order of defrauding a widow of $60 million, was recently dismissed; the complainant is considering an appeal.
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