I got this from Catholic Culture via e-mail. At least these people have the backbone and the decency to put the word "ordination" in quotation marks when referring to the creating of new poncho ladies™. I like this. (emphases mine) Enjoy!
Peace,
BMP
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When the Pope closed the question of female priests in 1994, he explained that the Church has no authority to ordain women. Our Lord did not provide for it. I don't mean that God forgot; obviously if God does not provide for something, it is because He has excluded it from His plan.
One can imagine reasons for this: The priest is identified with the incarnate Son, who is always referenced in Revelation as masculine, and who is male in His human nature. But the point is not that we can completely understand God's reasons, but that the Church can't make up her own religion. She can teach and do only what God has authorized her to teach and do.
Despite this inescapable fact, a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests has been busy "ordaining" women whenever possible, most recently last Sunday at a Jewish synagogue in St. Louis. The participants were warned in advance by Archbishop Raymond Burke that they would be excommunicated if they went through with it. They did, and they were.
All of this provides an occasion for a deeper reflection on the priesthood, which the Archdiocese of St. Louis has provided in The Nature of Priestly Ordination: Theological Background and Some Present Concerns. This contains links to several other key documents on the ordination of women, including John Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
Female "ordinations" don't "take", of course. They are not only illicit but invalid, so they don't happen. Another way dissident Catholics attempt to solve this problem is to eliminate the special priesthood altogether. That, apparently, is what the Dominican Order is trying to do in The Netherlands. See my latest blog entry, The Mass and the Dominicans in Holland.
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