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Father Roy Donovan, parish priest of Caheronlish, Limerick, has objected to the decision by his Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly of Cashel & Emly to introduce the permanent diaconate in his archdiocese. Donovan called on the archbishop to wait until the completion of a report by the papal commission on women deacons. He further believes that “a woman could celebrate the Eucharist even better than a man being more familiar with the shedding of blood. A woman saying ‘this is my body, this is my blood’ can give more meaning to the Eucharist than any male celibate.” The leadership of the radical...

Radio Vatican Promoting Women's Ordination Women at the altar - This is obviously what the German-speaking department of Radio Vatican wants and has published strange pictures on its Facebook page. After protests by Catholics the pictures were removed - PHOTO Vatican (kath.net) The German-speaking department of Radio Vatican yesterday, again, provoked Catholics with a strange selection of pictures and caused a certain ideological headlines to flash on their website. For example, on the Facebook site, with reference to an article on the Holy Eucharist and the phrase "How was the bread and wine again?" "What is the Body and Blood...

Vatican City: the new leader of the global Jesuit order has said the Catholic church should recognize that women are still not allowed to have a full participatory role in the church’s structures. Jesuit Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, a Venezuelan who was elected the superior general of the Society of Jesus in October, said March 8 that while Pope Francis has acknowledged that women play a “fundamental role” in passing on the faith they are not yet fully included in church governance. “Pope Francis has been quite outspoken about women making decisions and holding responsibility in the church,” said Sosa,...

La Civilta Cattolica has published an essay by its deputy editor, Father Giancarlo Pani, which seeks to reopen the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood. This journal, published by the Jesuits but vetted by the Vatican Secretariat of State, has long been a means of communicating lines of thought which reigning popes consider important. Therefore, the kindest way to describe this particular article is “peculiar”. It is, in fact, peculiar in at least three serious ways: politically, administratively, and theologically. When I say “politically peculiar”, I am applying the idea of political correctness to the Church. The question here...

In the most recent edition of the Italian Jesuit bi-weekly magazine, La Civiltà Cattolica, the text of which is vetted by the Holy See prior to publication, an apologetic appears in favor of female ordination. Sandro Magister, the well-known Vaticanista, offers an overview of the article on his blog, L’Espresso [available in English], wherein he reminds readers of a comment made by Francis on the return flight from Sweden last November 1st: For the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the last clear word was given by Saint John Paul II, and this holds. Magister goes on to argue,...

On 31 May 2015, the official website of the German bishops, katholisch.de, reported an interesting and revealing press event, at which a German theologian and the managing director of the International Diaconate Center (Internationales Diakoniezentrum, Rottenburg, Germany), Dr. Stefan Sander, has promoted the idea of women deacons. He is currently in Rome, said katholisch.de, because of “an international meeting.” Additionally, katholisch.de stated: “On Saturday [4 June], he [Sander] will – together with other experts – be received by Pope Francis [in a papal audience].” The German branch of Vatican Radio, Radio Vatikan, published on 29 May its own report on...

The Austrian Erwin Kräutler, the former bishop of Xingu, Brasil, is taking another step to promote his proposal to allow Catholic priests to marry. In January of 2016, the Vatican expert, Dr. Sandro Magister, had already written (http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351206?eng=y) about this bishop, showing his attempts to undermine celibacy. Then and now, Kräutler repeats that he had been encouraged in 2014 by Pope Francis himself to make “courageous proposals” with regard to the question of the lack of priests in his diocese. It was Sandro Magister who then, in January, raised the question as to whether the pope is planning the put...

Several students are protesting the decision by Boston College to not renew the contract of an adjunct professor in its School of Theology and Ministry who has openly questioned why the Catholic church won’t ordain women.The Boston College mission statement on its website talks about the Jesuit foundation of the school that makes it unique. It reads: “No other institution so explicitly embodies the fundamental human desire to know.”But after Father John Shea, a professor of pastoral care and counseling, asked church leaders for a theological explanation for why women are not being ordained to the priesthood of the...

A self-proclaimed Catholic priestess from Anaheim was removed from a press holding area at Los Angeles International Airport Thursday morning minutes before President Barack Obama was scheduled to arrive. Brenda Lee, 58, of Anaheim, was carried off by airport security after she refused to leave the area, saying that she wanted to hand the president a letter denouncing the California Supreme Court for deciding Tuesday not to annul gay marriages in the state. Lee was dressed in a cassock. In a phone interview, Lee said that she is a Catholic priestess "with St. Juliana's in Fullerton," and that there are...

“Can you ordain a hermaphrodite?” Santa Clara University theology professor says Church had long history of ordaining women that ended because of “virulent misogyny” Gary Macy, a professor of theology at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University, told attendees at a Monday night lecture at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, there is little room for historical doubt that women were ordained in the Catholic Church until about the end of the 12th century. Macy’s lecture, entitled “A Higher Calling for Women? Historical Perspectives in the Catholic Church,” was given at Benton Chapel on the Vanderbilt campus. The university’s...

The Church of England's ruling body has voted to go ahead with the ordination of women bishops. But the Church was facing a damaging split after members of its General Synod threw out compromise proposals on females in senior ranks. All safeguards demanded by traditionalists were rejected. Sky News correspondent Mike McCarthy said: "It's a historic and very significant moment for the Church of England. "The real test now is how many people will leave (the Church). There are certainly going to be many wrestling with their consciences." The Synod members voted to approve work on a national statutory code...

Click here to watch the video. - Women playing priests at a Call to Action conference - once more prompting the question why this organization isn't dealt with nationwide the way it is in Lincoln.