Posted on 08/07/2006 8:00:19 AM PDT by NYer
Eileen DiFranco sang the hymns, prayed and took Communion as she had done at countless other Catholic Masses.
But yesterday, for the first time, she led the service as an ordained priest - and received a warm reception from hundreds of Catholics and others.
"Nothing is impossible with our God," she told a congregation at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown. "Not even a woman priest."
Applause rippled across the steamy sanctuary, where many fanned themselves with programs titled: "First Mass. Eileen DiFranco."
DiFranco, 54, of Mount Airy, had participated in a July 31 ceremony that organizers say made her among the first women to be ordained in the United States by the organization Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
Roman Catholic dioceses in the country, including the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the U.S. Conference of Bishops have pronounced the ordination invalid, saying church law allows only men to become priests.
"I feel I have been called out by my community to do this," DiFranco said in an interview. "It has been a nudging along the way by God and by people who know me."
In her homily, DiFranco said people today sometimes found "very little that is meaningful in the teachings of the church about Jesus." Churches that were full two generations ago, she said, "are emptying out, and parishes are closing... .
"Some think that a return to those pietistic days of yesteryear, where the laity knew its place and only the priests knew and spoke the words of God, will repopulate the seminaries and repack the pews."
But DiFranco said people were looking for more from the church. "The big issues that might have brought some of you here today remain unaddressed, untackled, unmentionable," she said.
A nurse at Roxborough High School, DiFranco has been an active member of the Church of the Beatitudes, a congregation of about 20 people in the Old Catholic community. The group rents space from Garden United Methodist Church in Lansdowne.
But DiFranco said she had felt led to hold her first Mass at the church in Germantown.
Twenty-three years ago yesterday, on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, she had gone to a peace rally in King of Prussia and was impressed by the warm greetings of a group of people there.
Members of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown were hugging and kissing one another - and she remembered wanting to be part of a church like that.
On another Hiroshima anniversary, DiFranco celebrated her first Mass at the church, speaking of peace, tolerance and God's love.
"We want to support Eileen and this movement" toward the ordination of women, said Carl Yusavitz, 61, a Mount Airy resident who attends St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Germantown.
"I consider Eileen a Catholic and a priest," he said. "Her validity is based on 'By their fruits, you will know them.' Eileen has wonderful fruits."
DiFranco's son, Ben, 17, who attends La Salle College High School in Wyndmoor, said his mother's service as a priest "is going to be a catalyst for women being ordained in the church."
"A couple of my friends say she is not a priest, that her ordination was not valid," said Ben DiFranco, who assisted his mother at the altar during the Mass. "But I also have friends who are really for it."
The Rev. Bernie Callahan of the Church of the Beatitudes said DiFranco's ordination and first Mass were a sign that "paths are being opened to Catholic women."
"This has happened at a grassroots level, and those things tend to be unstoppable," said Callahan, adding that DiFranco would be a regular celebrant at his church.
Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a Lexington, Ky., resident who was ordained a deacon during the July 31 ceremony, said DiFranco's priestly work was needed.
"We need women's interpretation of the Gospel," said Sevre-Duszynska, who attended DiFranco's Mass. "Most of the poor of the world are women and children. Where are their voices?"
Toward the end of her homily, DiFranco told the congregation that "in Jesus, there was never a disconnect... . The words excommunication and intrinsically disordered would not have been part of Jesus' vocabulary."
The congregation applauded and later greeted her and her husband, Larry, at the entrance to the church.
"It was wonderful," DiFranco said of the Mass. "I felt so lifted up."
Moi?
As long as ya'll fail to use the term Protestant in the proper manner, I will have to assume that Catholicism has denominations.
The same day that the Pittsburgh newspapers had front-page photos of these eight women laying face down on the deck of a showboat, getting ordained, they also reported news of Mel Gibson's father buying up an expensive church building in Washington County, south of Pittsburgh, to use to establish a branch of his breakaway Catholic faith which uses the old mass, teaches that there was no Holocaust. Mel's Dad was based in West Virginia but has now crossed the border into Pennsylvania to establish himself here.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Church speaks doctrinally with one voice.
Those who dissent from dogmatic Church teaching are material heretics, at the very least.
No we do not. The Old Catholic Church is not on the list of churches in communion with us or recognized as having valid orders.
Any reasonable person would see that the Holy See would not endorse this nonsense that is on their "10 Reasons to check us out" page:
1. You will worship in a family where your marital status and sexual orientation are of no consequence. (That is, you are loved and accepted unconditionally.)
2. You will hear, finally, the dual parentage of Father/Mother God.
3.Your family life will be affirmed, no matter what shape your family is in. (In other words, this church realizes that there are other worthy families out there besides Mom, Dad, and Kids.)
4. You will occasionally hear the gospel read in a woman's voice and be spiritually enriched by the gift of a woman's homily.
The Old Catholics often use this lie of having valid orders to lure Catholics into their heretical churches. The Old Catholic churches today accept homosexuality, women clergy, contraception, gay unions, etc.
It does not have the stamp of approval from the Holy See.
What is an "RC denomination" (or "RC denomomination," if you prefer)?
You're either in union with Rome or you aren't. These women aren't. If they're an "RC denomination," then every other Protestant is a member of an "RC denomination" as well.
Actually, the Old Catholic Church did have valid orders, but they've started "ordaining" women to the priesthood (of course, those women aren't validly ordained to anything), and I believe also to the episcopacy as well. Anyone ordained by their female "bishopesses" wouldn't be validly ordained, so the validity of their orders would cease unless they could be traced back through a male line.
Okay, can you show me documentation from the Vatican that they had valid holy orders?
I would emphatically agree with you that they are/should be considered heretics as defined by dogmatic Catholic teaching. Still, I've heard quite a few, shall we say unusual things from FRCatholics that I would think (hope) are heretical by Catholic standards. At the very least they contradict equally dogmatic statements made by other FRCatholics. Drop by the Luther/Erasmus thread sometime to get a sample of what I'm talking about.
The only other possibility I can envision is that what Rome considers "dogmatic Catholic teaching" allows for a far broader and looser layperson interpretation, than what we Protestants think "dogmatic Catholic teaching" allows.
Ooooooo....I see your ploy. Just throw them all in with the Protestants, eh....
Well, it won't work. You can keep them and while you're at it take the liberal members of the Methodists. ;O)
1399 The Eastern churches that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church celebrate the Eucharist with great love. "These Churches, although separated from us, yet possess true sacraments, above all - by apostolic succession - the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are still joined to us in closest intimacy." A certain communion in sacris, and so in the Eucharist, "given suitable circumstances and the approval of Church authority, is not merely possible but is encouraged."238
1400 Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, "have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders."239 It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible. However these ecclesial communities, "when they commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection in the Holy Supper . . . profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and await his coming in glory."240
Meant to ping you to #50.
Well, who has the authority to say?
It all comes down to authority.
All I need to read to know this gal doesn't understand at all.
The woman is a fraud, just like the headline.
End of story.
Offering unqualfied love to those marginalized by divorce, sexual orientation or other judgmental issues.Ah, those judgmental issues! Good thing Jesus wasn't into that stuff!
"I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery." [His] disciples said to him, "If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry."
Those are examples, not an exhaustive list.
***Well, it won't work. You can keep them and while you're at it take the liberal members of the Methodists.***
What Harley said.
(Oh, and take the liberal Anglicans and the RINO PC(USA) with you as well)
Throw 'em ALL in together. Let God sort 'em out.
I guess the fact this doesn't bother me is probably due, in part, to me not being Catholic. :~) My husband and I were married by an eloquent and faithful lady pastor (Lutheran) who has prayed for and comforted members of our family at altars and gravesides for many years.
I've seen much more deplorable behavior on the part of humankind than just serving God in a way that some people disagree with. Of all the bad acts of people we'll see posted on this forum today, I think this one I can live with.
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