Pictures: Womanpriest in action

The Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington DC recently hosted the "First Mass of Roman Catholic Womanpriest Janice Sevre-Duszynksa." I reported on it the day it happened.

Since then Call-to-Action associated, and self-proclaimed woman priest Bridged Mary has blogged about it.

Janice's storytime - oops, I mean "homily" - consisted of her reading an excerpt from her 1980 musical "Altar Girls" (which, wouldn't you know it, was never staged). The plot could not better fit my expectations:

"Set in 1962 during Vatican II, it is about a young girl, Bibbianna, who wants to become an altar girl. Every Saturday morning when she cleans the sanctuary and priests'sacristy with Sister Joan, she tells her about her desire to become an altar girl. As time goes by, Sister Joan decides to take on Bibbi's quest as a lark at first. Later, however, her consciousness rises and not only does she support Bibbi, but she is able to name sexism in the church. In doing so she finds herself in trouble."

It's so sad, really. Sad even beyond caricature, or trying to reason with individuals in such a state of mind. The great number of grey and white hairs present in this gathering reveal that such things are already on their way out without any assistance from us.

But the greatest danger I could see happening is that such people get away with convincing others that they have discovered truths (about the dignity of women, to name one) which are not already contained in the Catholic Church, or which somehow undermine her witness.

And yet such truths are contained in the teachings of Christ and passed onto his Church. So while prayer may be are only recourse we have for Bridged Mary and Janice Sevre-Duszynksa, they should raise our awareness of the misunderstandings that can drive other people from communion with the Church. Frankly, I think seeing the alternative can be one good deterrent.

Finally, what we must not do is condone these activities and retreat from the truth. There's a certain "Rev. Joe Irvin" mentioned in this post. There's a technical term for his involvement with women priests - "enabling."