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More Ordination Outlawry
Abstract: Vatican says ordination of women is impossible and attempted ordination of women is a crime.
The Catholic News Agency reports that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a decree declaring that any women "attempting" ordination and any bishops "attempting to" ordain women are automatically excommunicated by their actions:
Regarding the crime of attempting sacred ordination of a woman
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to protect the nature and validity of the sacrament of holy orders, in virtue of the special faculty conferred to it by the supreme authority of the Church (see canon 30, Canon Law), in the Ordinary Session of December 19, 2007, has decreed:
Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.
If he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman or if the woman who has attempted to receive holy orders, is a member of the faithful subject to the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches, remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1443 of the same Code, they will be punished with major excommunication, whose remission remains reserved to the Apostolic See (see canon 1423, Canon Law of the Eastern Churches).
The current decree will come into immediate force from the moment of publication in the 'Osservatore Romano' and is absolute and universal.
The most recent "attempted" ordination of a woman occurred on May 4 in Winona, Minnesota when Kathy Redig (pictured) was ordained into the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization that seeks to ordain women in the Catholic Church and whose priests and bishops have often been excommunicated for doing so.
Bishop of Winona Bernard Harrington responded to the news of Redig’s ordination by saying it made him “very, very sad.” The bishop also said that “She, by her actions, has excommunicated herself.”
