AUSTRIA: A group of seven women are planning to be ordained as Catholic priests despite threats from senior bishops to excommunicate them, the Austrian organiser of the initiative has said in Vienna.
The women, from all over the world, hope to be ordained as priests by the end of 2002 by an unnamed Catholic bishop, said their leader, Ms Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, a teacher.
"We feel we have a vocation and we feel it is a matter of justice for the Church. Half of all Christians are women and we want them to enrich the Church with their service," she explained. "We want to have a part in forming the Church in the third millennium."
The women have completed 2½ years of training in theology and other aspects of the priesthood and are now preparing themselves for ordination.
Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger re- fused to give the date or location of the ceremony, which she said would "not be in Austria", or to name the Catholic bishop who would preside over it.
She said between five and seven women were currently involved but the number could change.
Catholic leaders have strongly criticised the plans. "This could lead to excommunication for the parties involved . . . because it is a schismatic matter," Dr Kurt Krenn, Bishop of St Poelten near Vienna, told the weekly Profil.
His comments echoed those of a number of senior bishops who have opposed the action. The women would risk automatic excommunication if they celebrated mass because only a man could be ordained as a priest, an expert in church law, Dr Bruno Primetshofer, warned in a statement issued by the Catholic press service Kathpress.
"We are Church," a Catholic reform movement in Austria, said in a separate statement.
The women's plan was not the right way forward. But Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger was unrepentant. "These men show themselves up by what they are saying. They do not want women to know what they themselves have experienced and that can't be Jesus' will," she said.