News

By Patrick B. Craine

TORONTO, Ontario, October 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Excommunicated priest Roy Bourgeois is scheduled to speak in Toronto this fall on women's ordination.

His talk, to be held at Emmanuel College on December 6th, is part of his 'Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling Tour', organized by the Women's Ordination Conference and Call to Action (CTA), to promote the 'ordination' of women.  CTA has aligned itself with dissident groups such as the pro-abortion Catholics for a Free Choice and the pro-homosexuality New Ways Ministry. Bourgeois will be visiting Washington, Boston, McAllen (Texas), Tucson, Chicago, Sacramento, “and more,” according to an ad.

Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest, was disciplined by the Vatican last October after he had participated in a mock 'ordination' of a woman at a gathering of the radical feminist group 'Roman Catholic Womenpriests' the preceding August.

The Vatican has reiterated strongly in recent years the Church's constant teaching that the priesthood is reserved to men.  Most notably, in his 1994 Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the late Holy Father John Paul II stated: “In order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, … I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”

Bourgeois was given thirty days to recant his position, but instead he initiated a campaign against the Church, and sent a letter insisting the Church was “wrong” on women's 'ordination'.  “After much prayer, reflection and discernment, it is my conscience that compels me to do the right thing,” he wrote. “I cannot recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church.” 

The event is being hosted by the New Catholic Times Sensus Fidelium, and is supported by the Canadian feminist group Catholic Network for Women's Equality.  Bourgeois will be joined by 'womanpriest' Marie Bouclin, a Sudbury mother of three who was 'ordained' in 2007.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

US Priest has 30 Days to Recant Support for Women's Ordination or face Excommunication: Vatican