A Mockery of Catholicism

By Theresa Marie Moreau

First Published in New Oxford Review

Aboard the tour boat Thousand Islander III, afloat and spiritually adrift somewhere on the St. Lawrence Seaway, somewhere in the choppy waters between Canada and the United States, the plucking of acoustic guitar strings begins.

Reminiscent of all those folk Masses the Church has forced parishioners to suffer through (If they sing Kumbaya one more time…), the pianist tilts her head back and sings the lyrics to “Here I Am, Lord.”

In step with the music, a procession of sandal-clad, middle-aged women winds its way from stern to bow, toward the makeshift altar, toward the history-making event: the “ordination” of women into the Holy Roman Catholic priesthood. Although the ordinations are technically both illicit (canonically unlawful) and invalid (sacramentally null), it’s a first in North America.

With ease, the women squeeze through dozens of sweaty reporters and cameramen, past the 200-plus invited witnesses, all who had boarded the vessel in the early afternoon of July 25, 2005, in Gananoque, a small Canadian town in the Thousand Island resort area.

A mild, mid-summer breeze from Lake Ontario blows through open windows. The monotonous chug purrs from the diesel motor below.

At the head of the parade, carried aloft like an antlered trophy, is the altar’s centerpiece: a crucifix constructed of birch twigs and baling wire. When those entrusted to the task of carrying the sacred symbol attempt to place the art-defying piece atop its pedestal of more twigs and more baling wire, a tile of the acoustic ceiling is accidentally skewered, letting lose a white shower of powder upon the altar. Many in the audience raise their hands to their mouths in an attempt to hide giggles and amusement.

The ordinands take their seats. Their biographies gleaned from press releases reveal a little about their secular lives.

The “priests”:

Michele Birch-Conery (a former nun), 65, of British Columbia, is an educator at North Island College as well as a poet and a feminist literary critic writing in an experimental genre she calls inclusive discourse; Marie David, 48, of Massachusetts, is a married mother of two and a Reiki master/teacher; Victoria Rue, 58, of California, is a feminist theologian, a writer/director/teacher of theater and teaches Comparative Religions and Women’s Studies at San Jose State University; and Jean Marie St. Onge, 60, of Massachusetts, is married and has been ministering for the past twenty-five years to dying and grieving adults and children in hospitals, homes, hospices and nursing homes.

The “deacons”:

Rebecca McGuyver, 61, of Colorado, is a university biology teacher; Regina Nicolosi, 63, of Minnesota, is a married mother of four and a chaplain in a nursing home; Dana Reynolds, 57, of California, is a married mother of two and an author/visual artist as well as a facilitator for the feminine spiritual/creative process; Kathleen Strack, 60, of California, is a mother of one and currently ministers in a mental health agency and a public school; and Kathy Sullivan Vandenburg, 63, of Wisconsin, is a mother of two and a feminist theologian, clinical therapist and trauma specialist presently counseling the disenfranchised.

In front of the altar remain three women, who claim to be Roman Catholic bishops in true apostolic succession. Elbow to elbow they stand, dressed in identical ankle-length chasubles with slashes of vibrant shades of red—colors symbolizing the blood of the crucifixion and the baptismal fire of the Holy Ghost. Each wears a bishop’s ring, and each wears a clunky crucifix, minus the Christ figure, dangling between their breasts.

As the singing and the strumming of the guitar cease, the three women grab their scripts and begin the ceremony.

“Today we give honor to our Mother God, who burst us from the waters of creation and into life in this world. Just as the waters broke in the wombs of our mothers, so we break open the waters of Mother Church and welcome the birthing of her daughters into equality,” reads “Bishop” Patricia Fresen, a 64-year-old former Dominican nun.

A native of South Africa now residing in Germany, Fresen, was “ordained” a Roman Catholic priest on August 7, 2003, during a private ceremony in Barcelona, Spain. She has since moved up quickly to her present ecclesiastical status.

To symbolize the community of women priests—their unity and one body in Christ—each of the ordinands and bishops brings forward a container of water they scooped up from their homelands: Alabama, Alaska, California, Massachusetts, Washington, Wisconsin, British Columbia, Austria and Germany.

On the altar (a buffet table covered with a cloth) the women pour the water into a crystal punch bowl dramatically and slowly, like Turkish coffee servers, as the guitarist strums “Come, Drink Deep.”

“May these waters mingle to become a river of justice, a river of inclusion flowing within and around us, birthing us in ministries of healing and of hope,” Fresen prays.

In halting English, “Bishop” Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, 50, of Austria, a former nun who is now a married teacher, reads, stumbling over some of the words: “This ship is a symbol of movement, of going forward, gliding smoothly. This is our ship, which does not rest in stagnant water, but is full of life and presences.”

“Bishop” Gisela Forster, 59, of Germany, who is married and owns a nursing business, picks up: “The ship of the Vatican hierarchy has been lying at anchor in the harbor for many centuries, filled with sleeping sailors (audience laughs) often unwilling to do the necessary work to keep the ship moving on the high seas, but are content to sleep on, safe in the harbor, year after year, century after century (hoots and clapping).

“We are now boarding the ship, and we are saying, the ship of the Roman Catholic hierarchy must end (cheers from audience). The Vatican sailors must be awakened (more cheers and applause).”

When the big moment—the prostration—arrives, the ordinands lie facedown on the floor. Once again the pianist tilts her head back. This time she strains her vocal cords for the beginning of the Litany of Saints calling, “Mary, Mother Jesus.”

“Pray for us,” everyone responds.

Back and forth the Litany continues for fifteen minutes until the final “Pray for us” signals the deacons- and priests-to-be to rise to their knees in front of the “bishops,” who begin the laying on of the hands. This is followed by the vesting of stoles and chasubles and the anointing of the hands.

Wrapping up the prayers, Fresen announces, “Let us pray together in the words that Jesus gave us.”

With raised hands, she cues: “Our Mother, and Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Audience peters out as the bishops continue with the Protestant ending.) For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

“Awomen,” someone in the audience yells out.

For communion, the vessel’s first mate, decked out in a sweat-stained whitish-gray shirt spiffed up with epaulets dangling from his shoulders, stands at the makeshift altar, digging a corkscrew into the bottles of sacred wine—Canadian merlot.

The newly ordained “deacons” distribute the chalices of the consecrated wine to the passengers. The newly ordained “priests” each grab a plastic basket, the type used to serve fish and chips. Inside every basket, rests a large, cookie-shaped "Eucharist," wrapped in a polyester dinner napkin. Each woman makes her way down the aisles to distribute communion, breaking off bite-size chunks and dropping them into the hands of the passengers, who pop the bits into their mouths. Some nonchalantly brush the crumbs off their fingers.

When Fresen announces, “Now, the Mass has ended and the service begins,” wild applause breaks out, guitars strum, piano chords blare and the recessional song, “Sister, Carry On,” begins. The punch bowl of mingled waters is lifted high into the air amid great cheer and laughter and carried heroically up a flight of stairs to the deck in front of the captain’s headquarters.

With a big splash the water is dumped into the St. Lawrence River, and the three-hour ceremony ends.

A few years ago, in 2002, the very first “ordination” of Roman Catholic women priests made an even bigger splash.

That’s when Forster and Mayr-Lumetzberger made headlines around the world, when they and five other women boarded the tour boat Passau on June 29, 2002—the feast day of Ss. Peter and Paul. On that day the seven women became the infamous Danube 7, when they were “ordained,” as the boat motored along the Danube River, which flows between Germany and Austria.

The other five women include Ida Raming, 73, of Germany; Iris Müller, of Germany; Pia Brunner, of Germany; Sr. Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, of Austria; and Dagmar Braun Celeste (ordained under pseudonym of Angela White), 63, native of Austria, currently residing in Ohio and ex-wife of Richard Celeste, the former governor of Ohio.

Even though the women who make up the Danube 7 have repeatedly stated that their ordinations in 2002 were valid—though admittedly illicit—they should have prayed a little harder for a better choice of bishop.

With a sacred pedigree that could be described as bastardly, at best, Romulo Antonio Braschi, 63, of Argentina, was supposedly ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1966, at the age of 24. Rumors abound that he was excommunicated in the 1970s, around the same time he founded the Catholic-Apostolic Charismatic Church of Jesus the King.

Braschi claims that he was, without a doubt, consecrated a bishop on October 11, 1998, by Bishop Roberto Padín. However, not satisfied with the first, Braschi claims he was then re-consecrated on January 30, 1999, by Jerónimo Podestá, who has since died and never admitted to the consecration.

In 1999, Braschi ordained his wife, Alicia, a "priest," who instantly became a celebrity in the woman-priest circles and who was present—with miter on head and crosier in hand—at the 2002 ordinations of the Danube 7.

Also reportedly present at the Danube 7 ordinations was Ferdinand Regelsberger, of Austria, described as a former Benedictine monk. It’s rumored that Braschi had ordained Regelsberger a bishop only a few weeks earlier, on May 9, 2002.

A no-show at the ceremony was a third bishop, Dujan Spiner, of Slovakia.

Intrigue abounds about the missing clergyman in a news story found at the womenpriests.org Web site, which has the following translated excerpt from the July 1, 2002 edition of the Austrian newspaper Der Volksblatt:

“Dujan Spiner, a bishop who had been ordained in the Czechoslovakian underground Church in the ’70s by Bishop Felix Maria Davidek, did not arrive…At the press conference after the event, the panic was not mentioned. It left its trace, however, in an announcement to the amazed journalists that the newly created ‘woman priests’ would have themselves ordained again, a few days later, sub conditione (conditionally). This was, said Forster, to make sure, in case someone would doubt the first ordination of Saturday on formal grounds…He had already secretly ordained them deacons on Palm Sunday in the Scharnsteiner home of the Mayr-Lumetzbergers.”

Not one of the women worries about the threat of excommunication. No one expects to receive the decree from the Vatican, which has remained mostly mute on this issue, perhaps preferring not to give too much airtime to the matter.

So far, of the undisclosed number of women who have since been “ordained,” only the Danube 7 have been excommunicated. It was ordered on August 5, 2002, in a decree issued from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (historically known as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition), signed by then-Cardinal and Prefect (formerly, the Grand Inquisitor) Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone.

As a result, the women are condemned to suffer all the punishments established by Code of Canon Law, Section 1331, which declares: “An excommunicated person is forbidden: (1) to have any ministerial participation in celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist or any other ceremonies of worship whatsoever; (2) to celebrate the sacraments or sacramentals and to receive the sacraments; (3) to exercise any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions whatsoever or to place acts of governance.”

Nonetheless, the women’s reasons for ordination may not be sacred, but rather secular: to raise the political platform for gender equality in the priesthood. Never mind Code of Canon Law, Section 1024, which declares, “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.”

No matter. These women have expressed that they don’t care much about the day-to-day priestly duties anyway, such as the regular offering of the Mass and the obligatory praying of the Divine Office.

When asked if the women intend to offer the daily Mass, ordination press wrangler Andrea Johnson scoffed: “Nobody does that anymore.”

Mayr-Lumetzberger responded in an e-mail when asked about her plans regarding the celebration of the Mass: “Not every Sunday, because we have so much to do.”

When the ordination ceremony aboard the Thousand Islander III ends, a couple “priests” lift the altar and move it out of the way to make room for the celebratory eating, drinking and chatting.

On top of the table, remain the glass chalices used to distribute the wine; beside them, sit the baskets used to carry the bread. It must be remembered that in a true Mass, Catholic dogma dictates every drop consecrated wine and each particle of consecrated bread, no matter how miniscule, contain the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ.

As I step closer, I see dried rings of blood-red wine circling the bottom of the glasses.

I step even closer and lift up a folded-over corner of a napkin in one of the baskets. I find on the bottom: chunks, pieces, bits and crumbs of the cookie-shaped bread.

I fold the napkin back over and turn around.

I see the women rejoicing.

Theresa Marie Moreau can be reached at TMMoreau@yahoo.com.