VATICAN CITY (AP) - The seven women who claimed to have been recently ordained as priests were excommunicated because they had attacked the fundamental structure of the Catholic Church, a top official told Vatican Radio Tuesday.
The interview Tuesday with Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, of the Vatican office that acts as a watchdog for doctrinal orthodoxy, was the first comment by a Vatican official since the excommunication was announced on Monday.
The seven women, from Germany, Austria and the United States, had defied an earlier Vatican warning to repent over their participation in a June 29 ceremony which they claimed made them priests.
Pope John Paul II has repeatedly ruled out discussion in the Catholic church on its ban on women in the priesthood.
Church teaching holds that because Jesus chose men to be his apostles, only males can serve in the priesthood.
Bertone said the ordination ceremony was a "public act" that "attacks the fundamental structure of the Church as it was wanted by its founder."
Further, he said, "it is a public attack that pretends to be an attractive example for other persons, to open a new phase in the life and history of the Church."
Bertone also denounced the publicity over the ordination ceremony.
The ceremony was conducted aboard a boat on the Danube, and news outlets were invited to cover it.
One of the women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, has described the excommunication as "a further act of discrimination against women in the Catholic Church."
In a statement from Washington, a small group which has differed drastically with the Vatican over many issues of Church teaching denounced the excommunications.
"Perhaps the Vatican should look on the ordination of women as a way of cleaning the church's house which as been soiled by abusive priests, bishops and cardinals," Frances Kissling, leader of Catholics for a Free Choice, said in a reference to the sexual abuse scandals that have shaken the church in the United States.