VATICAN CITY - The Vatican was set to hand down its severest sanction
Monday, excommunicating seven women ordained as priests by a controversial
Argentine archbishop.
Barring
an unlikely last minute climbdown by the women, the solemn order was due to be
handed down by the Vatican watchdog Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
as a deadline for their "repentance" passed Monday.
The
order would effectively cast them out of the Roman Catholic Church, removing
their right to participate in its rites and enjoy its spiritual benefits.
The
seven German, Austrian and U.S. Catholic women "ordained" in a June
29 ceremony in Austria, remain defiant.
"We
women have not committed any of the crimes which carry excommunication as a
punishment. We have not broken with the faith, spread heresy or deserted the
faith," they said in a recent statement.
The
showdown has reignited debate over women priests in the Catholic Church, which
has always refused to ordain women because Jesus Christ selected only men as
his apostles.
The
ordination was carried out by Argentine archbishop Romulo Antonio Braschi, who
broke with the Vatican in 1998 and became a bishop in a schismatic Brazilian
church, which cut ties with Rome more than 50 years ago.
The
Vatican said the women's ordination was merely "the simulation of a
sacrament" and was thus "invalid and null (and constituted) a grave
offense to the divine constitution of the Church."
A warning,
or "monitum," issued July 10, reminded the women that in his 1994
apostolic letter Pope John Paul II taught that "the Church has no
authority to confer priestly ordination on women" and that this teaching
"is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."
Excommunication,
often used throughout history as a diplomatic bargaining chip in the Vatican's
dealings with recalcitrant kings and leaders, is relatively rare in modern
times.
The
most recent case came in February when an Italian bishop, Pier Giorgio
Bernardi, excommunicated a priest in his diocese for marrying homosexual
couples.
The
Church's ultimate penalty is not seen as vindictive, but medicinal or
corrective, in that it is intended to bring the guilty back to righteousness.
There are
two types of excommunication, depending on the gravity of the offense.
Canon
Law reserves the more severe form, "latae Sententiae," for such
crimes as heresy, apostasy, violence against the pope, consecration of a bishop
without papal authority, procurement of abortion, profanation of the Eucharist
and violating the secrets of the confessional.
Excommunication
is seen as automatic in these cases. Lesser crimes, the "ferendae
sententiae," mostly dealing with doctrinal interpretation, are not deemed
automatic reasons for excommunication, but must be dealt with by a doctrinal
court.
The
Vatican has called on the women to acknowledge by Monday "the
"nullity of the 'orders' they have received from a schismatic bishop in
contradiction to the definitive doctrine of the Church and state their
repentance and ask forgiveness for the scandal caused to the faithful."
Failure
to do so would mean automatic excommunication.
The
women involved in the case are Germans Iris Mueller, Ida Raming, Gisela Forster
and Pia Brunner, Austrians Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger and Sister Adelinde
Theresia Roitinger, and an Austrian-born American who used the assumed name of
Angela White.