The Vatican said Monday it has upheld its decision to excommunicate seven women who call themselves priests, saying the move was necessary to protect the rest of the faithful.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, said in a statement that it had rejected the women's appeal of the excommunication order because of the "gravity of offenses committed."
The women - who include the former first lady of the U.S. state of Ohio, as well as women from Austria and Germany - participated in an ordination ceremony aboard a boat traveling Europe's Danube River on June 29. Performing the ceremony was Romulo Braschi, an Argentine who calls himself an archbishop but who is branded by the Vatican as the founder of a schismatic community.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the orthodoxy congregation declared them excommunicated on Aug. 5 after they refused to renounce their claims and prohibited the women from celebrating Mass or receiving the sacraments.
The women appealed the decision and asked for clarification on what constitutes "schismatic" conduct and on Biblical passages regarding equality of women.
The Vatican rejected the appeal and explained Monday that the women were "accomplices in schism" for having participated in the ordination ceremony with Braschi, who has already been excommunicated.
In addition, the women "formally and obstinately reject a doctrine which the Church has always taught and lived ... 'that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women,'" the statement said, citing a document by Pope John Paul II.
Because some of them women have disobeyed the Vatican by meeting with Catholics, "the penalty imposed is not only just, but also necessary, in order to protect true doctrine, to safeguard the communion and unity of the Church and to guide the consciences of the faithful," the statement said.
Ratzinger and other members of the congregation added in the statement that they hoped the women would return to the Church.
John Paul has made clear he sees no room for debate about the possibility of opening up the priesthood to women. He has argued that Jesus chose men to be his apostles and that the practice of ordaining only men must stand.
One of the women, Dagmar Braun Celeste, ex-wife of former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste, has said that by taking part in the ceremony, she was trying to send a message that the time had come to admit women into the Roman Catholic clergy.
Celeste was born in Krems, Austria, a small city on the Danube, and holds dual citizenship in the United States and Austria.