Three excommunicated for women's ordination

ST. LOUIS -- Archbishop Raymond Burke has declared three women excommunicated for participating in a women's ordination that is forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church.

Two of the women -- Rose Marie Hudson of Festus and Elsie McGrath of St. Louis -- were ordained as priests in November as part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement that began in 2002.

The third, Patricia Fresen, a South African and former Dominican nun now living in Germany, officiated at the ordination as a Womenpriests bishop.

The church does not recognize the ordinations. The archdiocese says they violate church teaching, which restricts ordination to men.

The women were served Wednesday with a "Declaration of Excommunication" letter from Burke that accuses them of various church "crimes." They include schism, or owning ideas or actions outside the church's teachings, and simulating sacraments or sacred rites of the church.

Monsignor John Shamleffer, the archdiocese's chief canon lawyer, said the excommunication is a "wakeup call" aimed at helping the women "see the error of their ways and return to full communion with the church."

"Excommunication is not meant to be a penalty," he said, but a hope "that this person will be willing to retract and return to what the church believes."

Those who are excommunicated may not receive the Eucharist or other sacraments of the church.

Hudson and McGrath said in a statement that they reject the penalties of excommunication and any other punitive actions from church officials.

"We are loyal daughters of the church, and we stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust man-made law that discriminates against women," they said.

The three cases of excommunication of Womenpriests would be the first since the group started in Germany in 2002. The original "Danube Seven" were excommunicated within weeks of their ordination, said Bridget Mary Meehan, a spokeswoman for Womenpriests.