Keep calm and follow Jesus, US bishops say after the election

By Matt Hadro

(CNA/EWTN News) Regarding the recent presidential election, Archbishop Kurtz said earlier on Monday that he had written to President-elect Donald Trump expressing a “willingness to work together” for the “protection of life” and the “promotion of human dignity.”

The bishops “have been very clear for the right to life of the child in the womb,” Archbishop Kurtz insisted, adding that the Church is defending human dignity by opposing the legalization of assisted suicide, which was recently approved by voters in Colorado and by the city government of Washington, D.C.

Trump’s victory has been met with protests in cities across the country, capping what was already a polarizing election cycle.

Bishops responded to the protests by stating their respect for freedom of speech while insisting that a “peaceful transition of power” take place. “I think that these can be reconciled,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, chair of the bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, of the protests and peace.

There is nothing “more American than a peaceful transition of power,” he stated...

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• Keep calm and follow Jesus, US bishops say after the election

Supreme Court Decision on Marriage “A Tragic Error” Says President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference

(USCCB) WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court decision, June 26, interpreting the U.S. Constitution to require all states to license and recognize same-sex “marriage” “is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
The full statement follows:

Regardless of what a narrow majority of the Supreme Court may declare at this moment in history, the nature of the human person and marriage remains unchanged and unchangeable. Just as Roe v. Wade did not settle the question of abortion over forty years ago, Obergefell v. Hodges does not settle the question of marriage today. Neither decision is rooted in the truth, and as a result, both will eventually fail. Today the Court is wrong again. It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage.

The unique meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is inscribed in our bodies as male and female. The protection of this meaning is a critical dimension of the “integral ecology” that Pope Francis has called us to promote. Mandating marriage redefinition across the country is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home.

Jesus Christ, with great love, taught unambiguously that from the beginning marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. As Catholic bishops, we follow our Lord and will continue to teach and to act according to this truth.

I encourage Catholics to move forward with faith, hope, and love: faith in the unchanging truth about marriage, rooted in the immutable nature of the human person and confirmed by divine revelation; hope that these truths will once again prevail in our society, not only by their logic, but by their great beauty and manifest service to the common good; and love for all our neighbors, even those who hate us or would punish us for our faith and moral convictions.

Lastly, I call upon all people of good will to join us in proclaiming the goodness, truth, and beauty of marriage as rightly understood for millennia, and I ask all in positions of power and authority to respect the God-given freedom to seek, live by, and bear witness to the truth.
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Keywords: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, Supreme Court, religious freedom, marriage, same-sex, Obergefell v. Hodges, Roe v. Wade, Pope Francis, integral ecology, encyclical
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• Supreme Court Decision on Marriage “A Tragic Error” Says President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Former Nun in Kentucky Simulates Ordination to the Priesthood

Rosemarie Smead, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman, sings with the audience before [not] being ordained a Roman Catholic priest, during a Celebration of Ordination at St. Andrew's United Church of Christ in Louisville, Kentucky April 27, 2013. Smead was [not] ordained as part of a dissident group operating outside official Roman Catholic Church authority. REUTERS/John Sommers II

By Mary Wisniewski 

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky  | Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:00pm EDT

(Reuters) - In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was [not] ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.

Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.

In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church - the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.

"It has no sting for me," said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. "It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives."

The ordination of women as priests, along with the issues of married priests and birth control, represents one of the big divides between U.S. Catholics and the Vatican hierarchy. Seventy percent of U.S. Catholics believe that women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.

The former pope, Benedict XVI, reaffirmed the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Male priests have been stripped of their holy orders for participating in ordination ceremonies for women.

In a statement last week, Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz called the planned ceremony by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests a "simulated ordination" in opposition to Catholic teaching.
"The simulation of a sacrament carries very serious penal sanctions in Church law, and Catholics should not support or participate in Saturday's event," Kurtz said.

The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to be priests because Jesus Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of a female priesthood said Jesus was acting only according to the customs of his time.

They also note that he chose women, like Mary Magdalene, as disciples, [wrong:] and that the early Church had women priests, deacons and bishops [/wrong].

The ceremony, held at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Louisville, was attended by about 200 men and women. Many identified themselves to a Reuters reporter as Catholics, but some declined to give their names or their churches.

'NEW ERA OF INCLUSIVITY'

The modern woman priest movement started in Austria in 2002, when seven women were ordained by the Danube River by an independent Catholic bishop. Other women were later ordained as bishops, who went on to ordain more women priests and deacons.

"As a woman priest, Rosemarie is leading, not leaving the Catholic Church, into a new era of inclusivity," said Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan during her sermon Saturday. "As the Irish writer James Joyce reminded us, the word 'Catholic' means 'Here comes everybody!'"

Smead had to leave the rigorous Carmelite life due to health reasons, and earned a bachelor's degree in theology and a doctorate in counseling psychology. She taught at Indiana University for 26 years, and works as a couples and family therapist.

During the ordination ceremony, Smead wept openly as nearly everyone in the audience came up and laid their hands on her head in blessing. Some whispered, "Thanks for doing this for us."

During the communion service, Smead and other woman priests lifted the plates and cups containing the sacramental bread and wine to bless them.

A woman in the audience murmured, "Girl, lift those plates. I've been waiting a long time for this."

One of those attending the service was Stewart Pawley, 32, of Louisville, who said he was raised Catholic and now only attends on Christmas and Easter. But he said he would attend services with Smead when she starts to offer them in Louisville.

"People like me know it's something the Catholic Church will have to do," said Pawley.

(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mohammad Zargham)

Link:

• Kentucky woman ordained as priest in defiance of Roman Catholic Church

Related:

• Lady Tambourine Priest
• Female priests push Catholic boundaries
• Women Priests? No. An explanation.
• Catholic Priest Faces Dismissal for Support of Women's Ordination
• Event explores topic of women as ordained Catholic priests
• 'Being a woman priest is what I feel I am called to do'