Danube Seven

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The Danube Seven (Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White) are a group of seven women from Germany, Austria and the United States who were ordained on a pleasure boat on the Danube on 29 June of 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, a Bishop whose orders are recognised as 'valid but illicit' by the Roman Catholic Church. As a consequence of this violation of Canon law and their refusal to repent, the women were excommunicated and invalidly ordained.

Contents 1 The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church 2 The future 3 See Also 4 External links

[edit] The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church

Currently there is a lobby within the Roman Catholic Church in favour of the ordination of women to the priesthood. The admission of women to the priesthood in many parts of the Anglican Communion, and in the Church of England in 1992, fueled some Catholics' calls for a greater role for women in ministry. At the same time, the Anglican Church's move created an apparently insurmountable obstacle to Anglican-Catholic unity. Pope John Paul II wrote of the theological impossibility of ordaining a woman, arguing that the action is unfounded in holy scripture, and absent from the Church's bimillenial tradition. Pope John Paul II has maintained that it is ontologically impossible for the Church to ordain women because the priesthood is a participation in the relational aspect of the Trinity which is dependent on a masculine nature. Supporters of women's ordination argue that there are both indirect scriptural references to women's ministry, and an ancient tradition of ordaining women, some say intentionally clouded over by the male hierarchy.

[edit] The future

The Danube Seven have chosen a controversial path, that of ordination by a Catholic Bishop not in communion with Rome, to such a degree that the sacramental validity of the ordination is not recognized by the Catholic Church. Bishop Rómulo Antonio Braschi left the Roman Catholic Church to lead an international missionary congregation independent of the mainstream world churches, the Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of “Jesus the King”. Many supporters of the ordination of women would reject this move as inevitably leading to excommunication and separation from the Mother Church. Although the women believe that they are validly ordained, the Catholic Church believes that because the matter for ordination (in this case a male person) was not present, no ordination took place. Despite the opinion of these seven women and some liberal Catholics, the Catholic Church continues to maintain that it is impossible to ordain a women to the Catholic priesthood. At the same time, the mainstream campaign for women's ordination by Rome could be said to be at a permanent 'dead-end', and whatever supporters might think of the Danube Seven's course of action, it is likely to be the nearest thing to Roman Catholic Priesthood that the women would ever have had access to in their lifetimes. Meanwhile a small number of Roman Catholic women continue to convert to Anglicanism so that they may pursue a form of priestly ministry.

[edit] See Also

• Ordination of women

[edit] External links

• BBC story, 5 August 2002
• Women Priests?, EWTN