{"id":4858,"date":"2010-09-03T15:37:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T15:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html"},"modified":"2010-09-03T15:37:02","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T15:37:02","slug":"bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html","title":{"rendered":"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/bishop-olmsted-says-divisive-attempted-ordination-of-woman-harms-church\/\">It happened in Phoenix: <\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe Catholic Bishop of Phoenix responded Wednesday to a priest&#8217;s reported participation in an attempted priestly ordination of a woman. Urging prayers for all involved, he said such actions are &#8220;divisive&#8221; and have &#8220;profoundly harmful consequences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Writing in a Sept. 1 letter published in the Catholic Sun, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted informed Catholics in the diocese that a &#8220;schismatic group&#8221; in Tempe, Arizona called the Ecumenical Catholic Communion tried to ordain a woman. Fr. Vernon Meyer, a priest of the Diocese of Phoenix, reportedly participated in the alleged ordination.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To feign the conferral of the Sacrament of Holy Orders results in the penalty of excommunication,&#8221; Bishop Olmsted explained, saying the penalty applies both to the person attempting the ordination and to the person attempting to be ordained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The attempted ordination of a woman is a grave offense against a sacrament and the structure of the Church,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Please pray for all involved in this divisive, scandalous act against the Catholic Church.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The teaching of the Church is &#8220;of paramount importance,&#8221; he said, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church&#8217;s statement that only a baptized man can be validly ordained. The Catechism says the ordination of women is &#8220;not possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Church&#8217;s position on the Sacrament of Holy Orders, of course, does not mean that women are of any less value or dignity than men,&#8221; Bishop Olmsted noted. &#8220;We are all called to Christian service, and women have always played an instrumental role in the life and holiness of the Church.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> There&#8217;s more at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/bishop-olmsted-says-divisive-attempted-ordination-of-woman-harms-church\/\">the link.  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meantime, for some other thoughts on the place of women in the church, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/articles\/244665\/god-and-woman-harvard-kathryn-jean-lopez?page=1\">this gal,<\/a> or, for a bracing tonic, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2010\/04\/09\/the-myth-of-the-held-back-catholic-women\/\">this one.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It happened in Phoenix: The Catholic Bishop of Phoenix responded Wednesday to a priest&#8217;s reported participation in an attempted priestly ordination of a woman. Urging prayers for all involved, he said such actions are &#8220;divisive&#8221; and have &#8220;profoundly harmful consequences.&#8221; Writing in a Sept. 1 letter published in the Catholic Sun, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It happened in Phoenix: The Catholic Bishop of Phoenix responded Wednesday to a priest&#8217;s reported participation in an attempted priestly ordination of a woman. Urging prayers for all involved, he said such actions are &#8220;divisive&#8221; and have &#8220;profoundly harmful consequences.&#8221; Writing in a Sept. 1 letter published in the Catholic Sun, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-03T15:37:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"It happened in Phoenix: The Catholic Bishop of Phoenix responded Wednesday to a priest&#8217;s reported participation in an attempted priestly ordination of a woman. Urging prayers for all involved, he said such actions are &#8220;divisive&#8221; and have &#8220;profoundly harmful consequences.&#8221; Writing in a Sept. 1 letter published in the Catholic Sun, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2010-09-03T15:37:02+00:00","author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html","name":"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-03T15:37:02+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-03T15:37:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/09\/bishop-blasts-attempted-ordination-of-a-woman.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bishop blasts attempted ordination of a woman"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}