Lyon, France, Jul 4, 2005 / 22:00 pm
A French woman who invalidly had herself ‘ordained’ as a Catholic priest on Saturday, is now facing automatic excommunication for her actions, which fall squarely in opposition to Church teaching.
During a small ceremony held on a boat, Genevieve Beney, joined by other so-called female priests and bishops, pronounced herself a Catholic priest calling it a stand against the “obsolete” and “unjust” practice of the Church to ordain only men as priests.
In a statement read before boarding the boat, Beney said, "This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church…If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and unjust to women."
She added in an earlier interview that, "We consider ourselves Catholic…But we do not agree with the church law ... that says only a baptized male can be ordained as a priest."