Vatican: Ordaining Female Priests Equivalent to Sexual Abuse of Children

"Delicta graviora" has a dark and terrible ring, which is about right: this is the categorization the Catholic Church reserves for the most heinous of crimes. The sexual abuse of a child by a priest was filed under this classification back in 2001, so you'd think they'd do a better job of preventing/aggressively punishing incidents of child molestation, but at least the revised list (expected later this month) now gives child victims until age 38 (instead of 28) to bring charges. And, to its credit, the Vatican is doing a better job of preventing another offense that is expected to be added to the updated list: "attempted ordination of women."

That's right: trying to ordain a member of the female sex as a priest against the Pope's wishes is an offense on par with the sexual abuse of children (and mentally disabled adults). The Catholic Church is highly concerned that women around the world, tired of their religion's sexism and misogyny, are trying to get ordained against official doctrine. And they're occasionally finding ordained male bishops [corrected] who, equally fed up with the Church's anti-woman stance, are willing to perform the ceremony.

Women can already be ordained as members of the clergy in a number of Protestant religions, but the Catholic Church has been staunch in its refusal to let any Eves grasp at their sacred knowledge and connection to God (despite the special worship for the Virgin Mary and female saints that is found in Catholicism, which you might think would encourage them to look more fondly on women who want to serve). Even without being added to the category of "delicta graviora," attempting to ordain a woman already carried the penalty of automatic excommunication. Can't have any grassroots gender equality rising up.

Bryan Cones, U.S. Catholic editor, is outraged that the new guidelines seem "to equate the 'attempted ordination of women' with the rape and torture of children." Furthermore, he complains that faithful Catholics have only gotten a portion of the action against child abuse they've been requesting for years, while receiving this completely unwelcome gift attacking gender justice, a move Cones sees as ironic "given that many Catholics, and I include myself among them, see the absence of women in positions of power in the church as a contributor to the ongoing sex abuse crisis."

One thing Cones says that I take heart from: he believe that this move by the Vatican makes the Church seem fearful of the women priests movement. If they're so concerned that proponents of gender justice are making headway, it might mean that women are closer to taking up the role in the Church that they deserve.

In the meantime: child rape and ordaining women? Not anything close to the same level of offense. If the Vatican can't recognize this, no wonder it has such a problem with priests sexually abusing children.

Photo credit: Svadilfari