Priest Threatened with Excommunication

by Sue Rakoczy · November 12, 2008

Fr Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest ordained for 36 years, has been threatened with excommunication for his support for the ordination of women. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has given him 30 days to recant his belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated. Fr Bourgeois attended the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska in Lexington, Kentucky in the United States on 9 August and preached a homily.

He has long been active in peace and justice activities and has been a chief organiser of the yearly protests against the School of the Americas in Benning, Georgia; the School trains military personnel from many countries.

In his letter to the CDF Fr Bourgeois restated his support for women’s ordination, saying, Therefore, I call on all Catholics, fellow priests, bishops, Pope Benedict XVI and all Church leaders at the Vatican, to speak loudly on this grave injustice of excluding women from the priesthood.

Once again we see that the Vatican’s approach to different voices in the church is excommunication. Bishops in many countries sheltered priests who were sexually abusing minors and not one of them has been disciplined in any way. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston remains in his high-profile position at St Mary Major in Rome.

We are told to pray for vocations. We do and women and married men say, “I feel called to the priesthood; please listen to my story.” But church authorities ignore their sense of call and tell us “pray harder”. So we do and even more women and married men speak of their calls.

I wish that Pope Benedict XVI had the courage to say to the bishops of the world, “Let us begin to listen to the vocation stories of women who say that God is calling them to the priesthood. Please send me the names of women in your diocese who you have talked to about their call. I wish to invite 25 women from around the world to the Vatican so that I can listen to the stories of their calls. Then we can pray together to discern what the Spirit might be saying to the church.”

Will this happen? It would take a great act of courage by Pope Benedict to begin this process of discernment. So let us pray.