The Rosa Parks of Catholicism?
The former Catholic nun behind the ordination this month of two women priests and one deacon in Florida says she welcomed a church threat to excommunicate any Catholic who attended the ceremony.
"Good!" Bridget Mary Meehan, one of five American bishops in the international Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, told the Sarasota Herald Tribune. "They're upping the ante. People will have to be courageous to support us and that is what this is about. Like our sister Rosa Parks, we refuse to sit on the back of the bus any longer."
The Catholic Diocese of Venice had warned Catholics away from the ceremony in Sarasota, which the church considers illegitimate. The diocese said the threat of automatic excommunication followed orders set forth from Rome.
"This situation is sad for the entire Church," the diocese said in a statement published by the Herald-Tribune. "The Diocese prays that all those involved in this attempt to 'ordain', 'Roman Catholic Womenpriests' will be reconciled with the Church, and that the harm and division caused will be healed."
