“Women are called to many different kinds of ministry and service in the church and in the world, and so are men, but just as a man couldn’t become a mother, which is perhaps the noblest vocation, a woman is unable to become a priest, deacon or bishop,” Flynn added.
The Catholic Church ordains only men “because Jesus ordained men,” he said. “We take seriously the idea that genders are different and have different roles to play in the Church.”
He said that Jesus had “great love for women,” but didn’t ordain even his revered mother Mary.
“In following that example, we believe it was the intention of Our Lord to recognize the distinction between fatherhood and motherhood, between masculinity and femininity, to create men as deacons, priests and bishops in the Church.”
Flynn suggested that American society in general rejects Catholic teaching on ordination because it confuses “equality in function with equality in dignity.”
“We believe that for people to be equal they have to be able to do all of the same things … We’ve done away with the idea that people can have different functions and yet be equal in dignity and be equal in love of the Lord.”
This results in the loss of the idea that some roles are reserved for women and some roles are for men.
Fr. Bourgeois’ case will proceed to the Vatican where he faces formal removal from the priesthood, a process known as laicization.
As an excommunicated priest, he cannot be a minister of the sacraments and his participation in the life of the Church is limited, Flynn explained.
However, he is still a member of the Maryknoll order until he is dismissed and he is still recognized as a priest under church law.
“The process of laicization removes him from the clerical state, to clarify that he has no ability to exercise ministry in the Church,” Flynn said.
Bourgeois’ excommunication was a “medicinal penalty” intended to evoke repentance.
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“When that didn’t work, and only when that didn’t seem to work, and Father perdured, did the Church begin the formal process she’s using now, which is separating Father from the formal ministry of the Church,” Flynn told CNA.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.