Women Ordained As Catholic Priests In Boston

BOSTON -- Three Catholic women were ordained as priests in a Back Bay neighborhood church this weekend, despite the Vatican's admonition that the trio would be excommunicated if they did so.

VIDEO: Women Priests Ordained In Boston

“The women being ordained today have been called and they are following God’s guidance and direction for their lives,” said Dana Reynolds, a woman from California who became a Catholic bishop in a ceremony in Germany three months ago. “They have said ‘yes’ to God.”

NewsCenter 5's Rondella Richardson reported that a congregation of Catholic worshippers, both male and female, filled the Church of the Covenant on Sunday, singing the hymn “All Are Welcome” at the beginning of the ceremony. A procession escorted the three women past the dark, wooden pews to the front of the church, where Reynolds initiated them into the priesthood.

"Excommunication or not, I will still be a validly ordained priest and still will be able to serve the people of God," said Gabriella Velardi Ward, 61, a Staten Island architect and mother of two, before the ceremony.

Also a grandmother of three, Ward said she had wanted to be a priest ever since she was 5 years old and once considered becoming a nun, but felt the priesthood was her true calling because she wanted to be able to celebrate the sacraments.

She was joined by Gloria Carpeneto, of Baltimore, and Judy Lee, of Florida. Mary Ann McCarthy Schoettly, of Newton, N.J., was ordained as a deacon.

The Vatican, however, said the ordinations would be illegal and the Boston Archdiocese sent out an e-mail to all priests saying that women who try to receive sacred orders and priests who try to confer them are automatically separating themselves from the church.

The Catholic Church has always said women cannot be priests because Jesus did not have female apostles.

The ordination ceremony took place Sunday at the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street, which is affiliated with two Protestant denominations, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ, the Boston Globe reported.

The church, which has a female pastor, offered to let the ordination take place there as a way of supporting and encouraging the women's group.

They are all part of an organization called Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which has been holding ordination ceremonies for women since 2002; the organization says there are now 28 women Catholic priests in the United States, according to the Globe.

The group says its ordinations are valid because its first female priests were ordained by bishops who were in good standing with the Vatican. They won't reveal the names so those bishops can avoid sanctions.

The Boston ordinations will coincide with the first Boston conference of four organizations that are pushing for the admission of married men, as well as of women, to the priesthood.

Jean Marchant, who once worked for the Boston Archdiocese's health care ministry, has already been ordained and, together with her husband, serves a small Catholic congregation in Weston, Mass.