Catholic News Service: Archbishop: Norms on women’s ordination reflect sacraments’ importance

Erin Saiz Hanna comments on the Vatican’s labeling the ordination of a woman "a grave crime." 

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Vatican’s decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major church crime reflects "the seriousness with which it holds offenses against the sacrament of holy orders" and is not a sign of disrespect toward women, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington said July 15.

The archbishop, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, spoke at a news briefing in the headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops hours after the Vatican issued new norms for handling priestly sex abuse cases and updated its list of the "more grave crimes" against church law, including for the first time the "attempted sacred ordination of a woman."

In such an act, the Vatican said, the cleric and the woman involved are automatically excommunicated, and the cleric can also be dismissed from the priesthood.

Noting that women hold a variety of church leadership positions in parishes and dioceses, Archbishop Wuerl said, "The church’s gratitude toward women cannot be stated strongly enough."

"Women offer unique insight, creative abilities and unstinting generosity at the very heart of the Catholic Church," he said.

But, the archbishop said, "the Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times."

The Vatican action drew a sharp response from Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, founded in 1975 to promote the ordination of women as Catholic priests, deacons and bishops.

Hanna called the decision "appalling, offensive and a wake-up call for all Catholics around the world."

"The idea that a woman seeking to spread the message of God somehow ‘defiles’ the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards church that still views women as ‘unclean’ and unholy," she said in a news release.

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