Women priest activists arrested by Rome police

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

A US Catholic priest threatened with excommunication because of his support for the ordination of women was arrested close to the Vatican yesterday as he and a group of 15 women staged a “Call To Action” protest.

Fr Roy Bourgeois and two activists in favour of women priests, Miriam Duignan of Women Can Be Priests and Erin Hanna of The Women’s Ordination Conference, were all held for two hours yesterday afternoon after they had attempted to deliver a petition to the Holy See.

Fr Bourgeois and the two women had led a 15-strong group of protesters, including three robed and “ordained” women priests, up Via Della Conciliazione towards St Peter’s Square, carrying banners with slogans such as “God Is Calling Women To The Priesthood” and “Ordain Women”.

Italian state police halted the small protest on the edge of St Peter’s Square and took the three activists into custody on charges of protesting without a permit. They were later released but told they might still be prosecuted for their “illegal” protest.

Fr Bourgeois (73), a member of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a New York-based mission society, has long campaigned for women’s ordination.

Speaking at a news conference yesterday morning, he said that the Holy See’s refusal to countenance women priests was pure sexism.

“Who are we as men,” he asked, “to say to women that our calling [to the faith] is valid but yours is not?”

The Vatican first initiated excommunication proceedings against Fr Bourgeois in 2008.