Woman Refused Communion After Ordination to Diaconate

The National Catholic Reporter ^ | 7/26/18 | Heidi Schlumpf

[marshmallow]

When Kathleen O'Connell Sauline came forward for Communion at St. Luke Parish in Boardman, Ohio, the priest placed a cloth over the bread and said he could not give her the Eucharist. Likewise, a deacon refused to give her the consecrated wine from the chalice.

The longtime parishioner and parish volunteer had been expecting it.

Eight days earlier, Sauline had been ordained a deacon through the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which is part of the international Roman Catholic women priests movement. The Vatican considers the ordinations illicit and has said that the women priests and deacons incur automatic excommunication.

When refused the sacrament at Mass on July 8, Sauline replied to the priest and deacon that she was hungry and thirsty "for that which Jesus called us to share," then moved toward the center of the church and waited with her hands open. Later, a lay Eucharistic minister gave her Communion, she said.

The priest, Fr. Zachary Coulter, who was ordained last year, is one of two sacramental ministers at the parish. Sauline said Coulter knew she was pursuing ordination and had earlier tried to talk her out of it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Likewise she is a simulation of a deacon.

I suppose you could call her a transdeacon, applying the usual grammatical rule that "trans" means "fake."

[Mrs. Don-o]

You are misinformed.

Women called "deaconesses" in the early Church era were not clergy, which is to say, they had not received Holy Orders. They functioned mainly in catechizing and baptizing women and children, since in many social contexts it was unacceptable for an unrelated male to visit women in their homes, nor to baptize them, since baptism was done naked, by immersion.

So today's pseudo-deaconesses are not interested in involvement on the model of the deaconesses of late Roman Christian antiquity. They could serve as sisters or nuns or monastics or women religious in active apostolates. but they are not interested in that. either.

That's because they are not interested in serving, per se. They are interested in acquiring status: the status of clerics. What attracts them, what they demand, is precisely the worst aspect of clericalism: title, prestige and power.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good point. It is not merely anauthorized. It is impossible.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Typo. Un authorized.

[Shethink13]

The EMHC probably did not recognize her whereas the priest and deacon probably had been specifically warned about her by the diocese and other parishioners.

So you think the Eucharistic Minister was oblivious to the actions of the priest and the deacon who refused to administer the sacraments? I think it highly unlikely and may have been a pre-planned setup with said EM.

[Bratch]

If Kathleen O’Connell Sauline wants to become a clergy member, she needs to join the Episcopal Church.

[vladimir998]

“So you think the Eucharistic Minister was oblivious to the actions of the priest and the deacon who refused to administer the sacraments?”

Yes, I think that is entirely possible. After all the EMHC would have been at the head of a different line of people and concentrating on his or her line and not what was happening in another line or even another part of the church. Depending on the church design some EMHC are stationed where it is literally impossible to see what some other EMHC or priest or deacon is doing. A church near me is so large - the one in question is NOT very large - that EMHCs literally have to have their backs to the priests and deacons. The church is in the shape of a cross and the aisle arrangements make it impossible to see what others are doing and still distribute the Eucharist.

I looked at photos of the church interior that are online - there are only a few - and it is entirely possible that an EMCH might not see the priest or deacon.

Any other questions?

[ReaganGeneration2]

We may be in agreement.

I was adresssing people’s relationship with the Church. The modern Church today is viewed as a set of people who make political rules and have power. People think you can protest and lobby.

The Church is supposed to be the Body of Christ; all the rules these women rebel against are supposed to be bound up in Scripture and long-accepted tradition, and of course may by discussed with reason and faith, and may be explored and re-interpreted, but without need to directly act against. In fact, one risks damnation for doing so, because it’s the pinnacle of pride.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Exactly. Feminists (and Masculinists, for that matter) forget that Pride is one of the Deadly Sins.