On Sunday, November 11 Rose Marie Dunn Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath were ordained as Roman Catholic priests by Rabbi Susan Talve of the Central Reform Congregation, a Jewish synagogue. Over 600 people attended the ordination in St. Louise, Missouri.

Here are some glimpses of what people are saying:

To the Roman Catholic Church, the ceremony was not an ordination. In fact, it wasn’t even Roman Catholic. But to two women and the approximately 600 people who came to cheer them on, history was made Sunday in St. Louis as the two became the first women ever in the city to be ordained as Catholic priests.
“The event of today is really very sad because the name Roman Catholic has been misused and misapplied,” said Dr. Lawrence J. Welch, a Kenrick-Glennon Seminary theology professor. “There’s been no ordination of Roman Catholic priests. In fact, there has been a profaning of something Roman Catholics believe is very sacred.”
From “Cheering crowd attends disputed ordination of two women as priests” by Michele Munz, St. Louise Post-Dispatch, November 12, 2007

The women said that at the end of Sunday’s ceremony, attended by more than 600 people, they were served with a summons and letter from [Archbishop Raymond] Burke ordering them to appear before a church tribunal Dec. 3.
Burke’s three-page letter admonished the women to “renounce any attempts” to celebrate Mass, hear confessions or officiate at any other sacrament under the “penalty of interdict.”
Interdiction is the withholding of Holy Communion and other church sacraments “until they acknowledge what they’ve done is wrong,” said the Rev. Arthur Espelage, executive coordinator for the Canon Law Society of America.
On Nov. 5, Burke warned the women, also by letter, that they would be excommunicated if they proceeded with the ordination.
From “Archbishop moves to penalize two “Womenpriests”” The Associated Press, November 12, 2007

The usual ordination of a Roman Catholic priest takes place in a cathedral and includes a vow of obedience to clerical superiors. It then culminates in the sacred “laying on of hands,” when the bishop presses his palms on the candidate’s head. Keeping with 2,000 years of tradition, all the participants are male.
But a priesthood ordination that bucks all Catholic custom will take place in St. Louis on Sunday, November 11. There will be no oath of obedience uttered at the ceremony, and no brother clergy at the altar when Bishop Patricia Fresen lays her hands on two women: Rose Marie “Ree” Hudson, of Festus, and Elsie McGrath, of south St. Louis.
Catholic priests in attendance are likely to be few, and those who do turn out will not be “robed up,” as one priest, who plans to come dressed in plain clothes, put it.
From “The Church Ladies” by Kristen Hinman, The River Front Times, November 7, 2007

The Rev. Vincent Heier, director of Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Affairs with the Archdiocese, spoke more bluntly: “This issue has been resolved among Roman Catholics. I know Susan Talve (rabbi of Central Reform Congregation). She’s done many courageous and good things. But for her to aid and abet this … well, it simply shows no respect. We would never get involved with the affairs of the Jewish community.”

Actually, said Rabbi Talve, her board’s decision to host the ordination was all about respect. “We were approached by two wonderful women who asked to use our space. ‘Hospitality’ is our core value,” she said. “The board seriously considered the matter. It has never been our intent to interfere in church affairs. It hurts me that we may cause pain for the archdiocese but, in this case, our core values guided us.”

“Would Jesus exclude women? I don’t think so.” By Sylvester Brown Jr., St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 4, 2007

I don’t know that I necessarily have any coherent reactions to this at this point.  I just wanted to put it out there for others to start meddling through.  Maybe I’ll have a future post about this when I have time to truly think and pray about it.