Austrian Bishops Say "Ordination" of 7 Women a Farce

Zenit News ^ | July 2, 2002

[NYer]

PASSAU, Germany, JULY 1, 2002 (Zenit.org).- A ceremony in which an excommunicated Argentine priest presumed to ordain seven women was denounced by the Austrian Catholic bishops' conference as a farce.

Romulo Braschi, who was excommunicated in the 1960s, claimed he had the power to ordain the women because he himself had been ordained bishop by two other excommunicated clergymen.

The women, of German, Austrian and U.S. nationality, went through the ceremony led by Braschi, founder of the so-called Charismatic Apostolic Catholic Church of Jesus King.

The Austrian episcopal conference in a statement said that "a simulated ordination like this one is not valid," and lamented that "a small group of women has wished to force the way toward ordination, scorning the magisterium and the Tradition of the Catholic Church," according to which "the sacrament of ordination may only be conferred on men."

The Vatican does not recognize the "Church of Jesus King" which, with headquarters in Munich, says it has 13,000 followers worldwide.

Braschi himself broke with the Vatican, saying that "the Catholic Church is in urgent need of reforms, called for by a great number of bishops and faithful in the whole world, especially the priesthood of women and the integration of families in religious life, capable of giving new impetus to and addressing the crisis of vocations."

Braschi claimed that he was ordained bishop by two colleagues, Brazilian Roberto Garrido Padin and Hillarios Ungerer, of the "Free Catholic Church." The Argentine refers to himself as archbishop of Munich, Zurich, Buenos Aires and Salvador da Bahia.

The weekend ceremony, attended by some 300 people, took place in a ship moored in the Danube near Passau in southern Germany.

[NYer]

crisis of vocations

The one created by the heretics running the seminaries who hope to promote their agenda? If they get their wishes, it won't be a crisis of vocations, so much as a crisis of irate and angry catholics equipped with pitchforks and stakes!

[Antoninus]

I think we're starting to see the signs of desperation from the dissenters both within and outside the Church. They aren't getting what they want in terms of women's ordination and ending priestly celibacy, and the zeitgeist seems to be flowing against them on liturgical 'renewal' and teaching on matters of sexual (im)morality. The scandals their false teachings have precipitated have also blown up in their faces. I think the time is coming soon when we'll see some members of the hierarchy in open schism. I just pray that the Pope is strong enough to take the proper course of action.... purge and excommunicate.

[american colleen]

Thanks for the post. I'm off to (sweat) do errands now, and I'll check back and read the entire text and responses later at work.

I wanna know, if women priestesses are allowed (and I know they won't be, but I'm taking the AmChurch approach here), where they will live. In the rectories with the male priests??? Or do we have to build separate rectories for the female priests? ;-)

[NYer]

I wanna know, if women priestesses are allowed, where they will live. In the rectories with the male priests???

Given the decrease in vocations, colleen, the bishops will never have to face that dilema! </sarcasm. The female priests (priestesses?) will be assigned their own parishes, where they can minister alone. Then, too, if women are eventually ordained, it only stands to reason that married priests will also be the rule.

With time, (and assuming the ordination of women to the priesthood ever comes to pass), we will have this to look forward to.

Caucus defends sending women priests to resistant dioceses