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In a classic case of what my late father would call "Shoveling sh-- against the tide,"  a group of people tried to present the Vatican a petition signed by 15,000 people calling for the ordination of women as priests in the Roman Catholic Church. They were stopped at the gate of St. Peter's Cathedral, denied entrance, and three were detained by police.  Surely they knew this or some similar outcome was inevitable ( I pasted the press release below)

Being a Catholic, I won't argue for or against women's ordination, other than to repeat a few graphs from a 2007 column following a diocesan critique of an article I had writen. The article mentioned one priest's view of the issue - and for full disclosure, that priest was Father Bob Timchak, who went to jail last November on charges of downloading child porn on his computer. A disturbing fact, but irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Back in 2007, the diocese cited various church writings explaining the church's position. I found them on line, read them, and wrote:

"These documents are often eloquent and compelling, sometimes long and complex. It is not hard to find things that seem contradictory. They frequently cite other documents the Church has produced over two millennia, making the arguments very self-referential. Because they cannot cite biblical passages that explicitly mandate celibacy or bar women from priesthood, they offer sophisticated reasoning for the Church's interpretation of scripture instead.

    That's fair. But I wish that when the Church says the rules on celibacy and female priests are not open to debate, they would admit that the hierarchy could open it to debate if they want to.

    More important, I wondered: As all these scholars debated and justified excluding women from the priesthood for the past two millennia, how many women participated in the conversations?"

The Press Release:

Rome, Italy - This afternoon, an international delegation of women's ordination leaders including Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, marched to the Vatican with a petition signed by 15,000 supporters. Fr. Bourgeois has been threatened by church officials for his public support of women's ordination. Members of the delegation including Fr. Bourgeois, Erin Saiz Hanna, Executive Director of Women's Ordination Conference, and Miriam Duignan of Womenpriest.org were detained and then released by local police authorities.

The delegation of fifteen leaders was met by local police at the gate of St. Peter's and was denied entry. Plain-clothes policemen apprehended the delegation's banners stating "Ordain Catholic Women," "God is calling women to be priests," and "Call To Action." The banners have been withheld as evidence for a pending hearing. Those who were detained were not officially arrested but their case will be heard by a judiciary court.  

For a series of photos for press use, click here.

For more information see:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/17/idUS402290250120111017

 

 

About this Blog

My column is neither beat or subject specific, and has ranged from whimsical to hard news. Since I'm primarily an education reporter and a native of the Hazleton area, those often draw my focus.

About the Author

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

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