Columbus, Ohio, Nov 13, 2008 / 21:01 pm
Father Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who participated in the attempted ordination of a woman to the priesthood, has been told by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to renounce his support for women’s ordination or be excommunicated. The priest has affirmed he will make no such renunciation.
The Vatican action results from an August 8 ceremony at a Unitarian church. There, the Carmel-by-the-Sea woman Dana Reynolds, who claims to be a Catholic bishop, purported to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska as a Catholic priest. According to the California Catholic Daily, Father Bourgeois delivered the homily at the event, reportedly equating Catholic teaching that the Church has no authority to ordain women with the segregation of African-Americans in Louisiana, his home state.
His participation in the ceremony was reportedly the first to have involved a Catholic priest in good standing with the Church in the United States.
Father Bourgeois’ Maryknoll superiors, learning of the incident, summoned him to a meeting in Maryknoll, New York. A joint statement from the priest and his superiors reported that his participation in the ceremony had been investigated and communicated to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.