Ekklesia News Service
By staff writers
November, 20, 2008
A 70 year old Catholic priest who has led campaigns against torture, faces excommunication by the Vatican tomorrow following his active support for women's ordination.
Rev Roy Bourgeois, from Georgia in the US, said he plans to visit the Vatican personally this week to lobby against the formal excommunication.
Bourgeois is a nationally known peace activist, and has been targeted by the Vatican for participating in a ceremony in which Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, was ordained.
The Vatican considers ceremonies for the ordination of a woman as a priest illicit and invalid.
According to the New York Times, Sevre-Duszynska is a veteran agitator for women’s ordination, and the 35th American woman to claim ordination from the increasingly vocal Womenpriests group. The Womenpriests group has been holding its own ordinations of women as priests, deacons and even bishops across North America and Europe, often in secret, starting in 2002 with a ceremony on a boat on the Danube River, reports the New York Times.
Bourgeois, born in Lutcher, Louisiana, began his annual protests to close the School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, an Army training school held responsible for human rights abuses in Latin America, in 1989. The institution was closed due to the protests, and in its place, the Pentagon opened the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation in 2001. Campaigners suggest that this was little more than a rebranding exercise and it still trains South and Central American police forces in the techniques of torture, repression, and counter-insurgency.
The protests are still held annually at the gates of Fort Benning, drawing more than 15,000 protesters last year. This week, from November 21-23, will be the 19th annual vigil to close the SOA. The deadline for Bourgeois’ excommunication is also Nov 21, reports the Associated Press.
In a letter to the Vatican, Bourgeois wrote: "I was very saddened by your letter dated October 21, 2008, giving me 30 days to recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or I will be excommunicated.
"I have been a Catholic priest for 36 years and have a deep love for my Church and ministry.
"Women in our Church are telling us that God is calling them to the priesthood. Who are we, as men, to say to women, 'Our call is valid, but yours is not.' Who are we to tamper with God's call?" he continued.
"Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard or how long we may try to justify discrimination, in the end, it is always immoral.
"Hundreds of Catholic churches in the US are closing because of a shortage of priests. Yet there are hundreds of committed and prophetic women telling us that God is calling them to serve our Church as priests.
"If we are to have a vibrant, healthy Church rooted in the teachings of our Savior, we need the faith, wisdom, experience, compassion and courage of women in the priesthood."
"Working and struggling for peace and justice are an integral part of our faith. For this reason, I speak out against the war in Iraq. And for the last eighteen years, I have been speaking out against the atrocities and suffering caused by the School of the Americas (SOA). Eight years ago, while in Rome for a conference on peace and justice, I was invited to speak about the SOA on Vatican Radio. During the interview, I stated that I could not address the injustice of the SOA and remain silent about injustice in my Church. I ended the interview by saying, 'There will never be justice in the Catholic Church until women can be ordained.' I remain committed to this belief today."
If Bourgeois is excommunicated, he says he will remain active in SOA Watch and the church, Bourgeois told the AP. “I won’t be able to say Mass in Catholic churches, but my ministry in SOA Watch and speaking at colleges and churches will continue,” he said.
Full text of Rev Roy Bourgeois letter to the Vatican may be found here
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