Sir, - I have a personal interest in the ordination of Sinead O'Connor as a priest of the Tridentine Church in that I greatly favour women priests. Why women should not have the same rights as men with regard to the celebration of the Mass is beyond my comprehension.
Christ had a coterie of holy women in attendance throughout the whole of His public life, up to the moment of his death on the cross and afterwards. Was it not a woman who first saw Him after His resurrection? Did He not respect, honour and revere His mother at all times? Was His mother not the only human to be assumed into heaven body and soul and is she the only complete human in heaven, all the rest being spirits? Christ was clearly pro-female, yet we are asked to believe that He deliberately disbarred women from celebrating the Eucharist? Drivel, I say.
Sinead O'Connor's ordination has been declared invalid. How invalid, I wonder, is the ordination of a seminarian steeped in the heinous crimes and mortal sins of sodomy, paedophilia and variations thereof? How valid is any one of the sacraments celebrated by such evil men? Can such a despicable sinful/criminal "priest" change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? I think not. Compared with the ordination of such evil men, how invalid is Sinead O'Connor's ordination? If nothing else, she has struck a blow against male domination in the church and in favour of women's rights. If half our clergy were women I believe the incidence of priestly perversions would all but disappear.
Sinead O'Connor is far from being my ideal female candidate for the priesthood. Nevertheless, the condemnation of her ordination is not without its echoing hollow ring. - Yours, etc., W. G. A. Scott,
Friars Hill, Wicklow.