This creature is not a priest, is not Catholic, and did not offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It committed an act of blasphemy.
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."
And yet she didn't follow her 'calling'. They don't reject anybody like those meany churches, according to their TV ads, right?
Gee, until I saw all the responses to this, I assumed you meant Real Calvinist.
"We're Real Calvinists. We use a newer, more modern translation. It's really what Calvin would have said had he been better informed."
Fine. If you are in schism with Rome, post Reformation, what makes you any different from the other Protestant communities?
Maybe we need to develop a third category:
API churches: Apostate and Proud of It
Nuthin' to add to that.
Most of the Protestant groups didn't start out with valid orders in the first place (Church of England being the main exception, at least at first). No validly ordained bishops means that you have no valid orders to pass on.
The CofE lost valid orders in the 1550's, when they altered their ordination ritual to remove references to the sacrificial nature of the Mass. (Something all other Protestants also deny.)
By comparison, the Old Catholics, PNCC, etc., never altered their ordination rituals, and did start out with valid orders.
Let's phone or write to the staff writer AND Philly.com, and inform them a least that their headline was factually incorrect, and that much of the article was misleading:
- Contact staff writer Edward Colimore at 856-779-3833 or ecolimore@phillynews.com. To comment, or to ask a question, go to http://go.philly.com/askcolimore.
If we all do this, they will notice.
Excellent idea and will follow up as you advise.
The Dogma is basic, core, foundational beliefs. Things like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus' Resurrection and ascension. Things like that. I would say that most protestants agree with us on the dogma if it weren't for these churches out there trying to redefine the trinity now.
It's the Doctrine that you can still argue about a little. Not much though.
Law is created to protect the doctrine. Laws can be changed.
Dear FJ290,
I don't know if you may have missed #76, which relates the validity of Old Catholic Holy Orders to that of the Polish National Catholic Church.
sitetest
I don't think apostate or heretical priests, who are themselves at least ipso facto excommunicated, can validly pass along ANYTHING, except maybe a social disease.
But they are not priests, and also --- to their credit --- do not claim to be priests.
All of us would be well-reminded of our power to comfort, pray for, instruct and counsel each other in Christ's name at times of spiritual need. This is something we all have in common as brothers and sisters in Christ.
And there are certainly Catholic women who do all of that as counselors, teachers, organizers, administrators: good heavens, look at Mother Teresa or Mother Angelica! Read the lives of the saints! No doubt even this misled "female Catholic priest," as she confusingly calls herself, has gifted others by means of spiritual works of mercy; this is, after all, part of every person's Baptismal vocation.
The difficulty comes in her falsely claiming to be a priest. She simply isn't. Kentucky Fried Chicken may be nutritious and delicious, but simply isn't a Cheeseburger. Nothin' wrong with chickens. It's just a question of honest labeling, truth in advertising.
And the really interesting people in Catholicism are not the priests, or the popes, but the saints.
I understand... And you will, I hope understand that to me, the condemnation of this woman seems a bit overblown in a world where there are worse crimes than wanting to be a priest.
This creature is not a priest, is not Catholic, and did not offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It committed an act of blasphemy.
Done !
In this world perhaps, but in the next world, there will be hell to pay. Leading souls astray is not high on the rewards list. In fact, it's waaaaaaaay down at the bottom.
No, I did not miss it. Interesting comment I found by a priest, Father Robert Auman, on Ask Father.net
He said that no Bishop can be validly ordained that is outside the communion of the Catholic Church.
Another priest stated, Father John T. Zuhlsdorf, that if the Old Catholics orders were valid at one time, they certainly aren't now because the Bishops that were validly ordained in the Roman Catholic Church that broke with Rome and went over to the OCC, had now all died off, therefore making null and void apostolic succession.
I am aware that in May of 2006 there was some progress for unity with the Polish National Church. One of their demands is that we recognize the validity of their orders.
Here's my question to you, layman to layman. The Polish National Church is actually not as splintered as the Old Catholics churches. Many of the Old Catholic churches are independents. Neither church entity recognizes the Papacy, the Polish National Church says that original sin is not passsed on to succeeding generations and they reject the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The Old Catholic church is known for admitting unrepentant homosexuals into their "priesthood" and accepting homosexuals into their laity without repentance. The OCC doesn't reject divorce or contraception.
With those points in mind, how could any of their clergy be validly ordained?
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia on Holy Orders:
"For lawful ordination the bishop must be a Catholic, in communion with the Holy See, free from censures, and must observe the laws prescribed for ordination. He cannot lawfully ordain any except his own subjects without authorization.
Therefore, any subject outside the Church, rejecting her teachings, wouldn't be a lawful ordination. Do you see my point?
Dear FJ290,
I'm not sure that I can agree with Fr. Auman's or Fr. Z's analysis. Why, then, would the Holy Orders of the Orthodox not have failed, then?
Bishops have the capacity to consecrate a baptized man to be a priest or a bishop. They may not have papal permission or approval, but that isn't required for the ontological change to be effected when bishops consecrate.
We don't hold that a bishop or priest must be worthy, or even orthodox in his theology necessarily for his sacramental actions to be valid.
"With those points in mind, how could any of their clergy be validly ordained?"
Well, the Orthodox don't accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, reject the doctrine of Original Sin, and permit divorce and remarriage, and are often a little soft on contraception. Why do we consider their Holy Orders valid?
"For lawful ordination the bishop must be a Catholic, in communion with the Holy See, free from censures, and must observe the laws prescribed for ordination. He cannot lawfully ordain any except his own subjects without authorization."
"Lawful" is licit. There is no question that these consecrations aren't licit.
Validity is a separate question.
What is licit is what is legal. What is valid is what actually occurs. An act may be illicit but valid.
The consecrations of the SSPX bishops were valid, but extremely illicit.
sitetest
I guess we'll see, I've always had a feeling people have a tendency to confuse their own priorities with God's... :~)
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