CHURCH CRITICS:A SPECIAL "Reformation Day" ceremony is to take place at the Vatican on October 31st to mark "the birthday of the Year for Survivors", the Humbert Summer School was told yesterday.
Boston abuse victim Bernie McDaid, who met Pope Benedict on the latter’s visit to the US in 2008, said it was planned to observe 60 seconds of silence in St Peter’s Square to be followed by a candlelit vigil.
“We’ve just had the Year for Priests; now we will have the Year for Survivors,” he said. “You want change, you come with me. All we want is support,” he said. Details are at www.survivorsvoice.org.
When he met the pope he told him “Holy Father, you’ve a cancer in your flock ... nothing has happened since.” He wanted abuse victims from across the world and their supporters to attend, he said.
Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan told the school that “like Rosa Parks who refused to sit in the back of the bus, we will not accept second-class membership in our church. No Vatican punishment will stop our movement.”
Ordained bishop in 2006 and ministering in Florida and Virginia, she said the Roman Catholic Women Priests movement to which she belongs has grown “from the seven bold women first ordained on the Danube river in 2002 to over 100 now. Ordained women are already ministering in over 23 states across the United States, in Canada, Scotland, France, Germany, Austria and coming soon, in South America.”
It had “broken an unjust law that discriminates against women. In order to change an unjust law, one must break it as the civil rights and other human rights movements have demonstrated.”
She said “our female priests are ordained in apostolic succession, the same way as men. Our first bishops were ordained by a male Roman Catholic bishop with apostolic succession. His identity is kept secret to protect him from the wrath of the Vatican.”
The Vatican’s recent “hostile edict”, which prescribed automatic excommunication for anyone associating with the ordination of a woman, was a reminder of “the church’s long history of misogyny”, with its insinuation that the ordination of a woman “defiles the sacrament,” she said.
Catholic social activist Brendan Butler said “very few of the Irish Catholic hierarchy, save possibly Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, realise how deep is the disaffection among traditional Catholics with the official church”.
This “dreadful saga continues with the scandalous refusal of the pope to accept the resignations of bishops Field and Walsh,” he said.
Abuse victim Michael O’Brien called on the bishops to set a date to meet abuse victims “as soon as possible”. The last such meeting was in February.
2010 Humbert School awards for “Outstanding Courage” were presented yesterday to Marie Collins and Andrew Madden by director John Cooney who said neither “ever had any public recognition for their moral courage”.
