VATICAN CITY –The Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith excommunicated seven women ordained as priests by a bishop who has broken with the Roman Catholic Church Aug. 5.
The congregation said it acted after receiving no response to a formal warning, which it issued July 10, giving the women 12 days to acknowledge their ordinations were “invalid and null,” repent and ask forgiveness.
A “Decree of Excommunication,” signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican body that safeguards the church’s doctrine of faith and morals, said the women had failed to “give any indication or amendment or repentance for the most serious offense they committed.”
The women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White, all former theology students at Linz, Austria, were ordained June 29 by Bishop Romulo Antonio Braschi in a ceremony on the Danube.
The Vatican contends that Jesus established the tradition of a male priesthood by choosing only men as his apostles. It has urged women to model their role on that of the Virgin Mary.
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