Father Roy Bourge facing excommunication for advocating Ordination of women

U.S. priest facing ouster to appeal

ALBANY: An American priest facing excommunication for supporting the ordination of women said he plans to visit the Vatican with a contingent of fellow priests and a bishop to appeal the decision.

Father Roy Bourgeois, 69, a peace activist, ran afoul of Vatican doctrine by participating in an August 9 ceremony in Kentucky to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Recent Popes have said the Roman Catholic Church cannot ordain women because Christ chose only males as apostles.

“Who are we as men to say to women that our call to the priesthood is valid, but yours is not?” Father Bourgeois asked. “As Catholics we profess that the invitation to priesthood comes from God, and I believe that we are hampering with the sacred when we say that women must be excluded from being priests. That invitation is from God.”   more

Women abandon the churches in England .

Churches in England have lost about 50,000 women every year from their congregations since 1989, according to a Derby-based sociologist.

Dr Kristin Aune, from the University of Derby, said many young women were put off by the traditional values. She said television programmes promoting female empowerment also discouraged women from going to church. She is the co-author of Women and Religion in the West.

Dr Aune, said: "Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church."

More