Female Priests Defy Rules, God

Nearly a decade ago, seven women were secretly ordained as Catholic priests in Germany. They went out and began ordaining women into the priesthood, and now, more than 100 ordained female priests exist. It’s just like one of those chain letter hoaxes that used to be passed through the US mail where you send the person at the top of the list a dollar and in three weeks, you’re a zillionaire.

According to NPR,

As members of the Roman Catholic Church, these women priests are all breaking church rules, which allow ordination only to baptized males. No member of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests has been excommunicated by the Church, but they have felt repercussions. They’ve not only been threatened, they’ve lost friends and colleagues within the Church – many of whom fear they will lose their jobs if they support the women’s ordination movement openly.

The Catholic Church is not known for being a progressive organization (they just apologized to Galileo for rejecting his notion of heliocentricity in the year 2000), and so a pragmatic person may see these women’s pursuit as wildly optimistic. Still, anyone who is undaunted by something as big, old, and unweildly as the Roman Catholic Church is a force to be reckoned with, and someone with much more patience than I.