Women Risk Excommunication to Be Ordained Catholic Priests

Katy Zatsick of Lexington, Kentucky and Dena O'Callaghan of Ocala are scheduled to be the first two women to be ordained in Florida.

On Saturday, two new priests will be ordained into the Catholic Church in Florida. With a shortage of priests, they’re badly needed. There’s just one issue – these priests are women, and the Catholic Church says women can’t be priests.

The women say they’re listening to a higher power.

“Our churches are being closed. Our ministries are being dropped. There are not enough pastoral priests,” said Katy Zatsick, one of the women set to be ordained. “So we say, I hear your call. And the time is now.”

The group, Roman Catholic Womenpriests, says it has ordained about 100 priests around the world. Dena O'Callaghan of Ocala and Zatsick of Lexington, Kentucky are scheduled to be the first two women to be ordained in Florida.

O’Callaghan says she’s wanted to be a priest ever since she was a child, when she used her mother’s wineglass as a chalice and pretended to lead Mass.

She says the church’s ban on women as priests isn’t rooted in history or the Bible.

“Their reason is that Jesus only ordained men, and therefore, that is our tradition. But there is archaeological evidence that there were female deacons, priests and bishops in the early years of our church, all the way up to 1200,” she said.

They cited the story of Ludmilla Javarova to show that women have served as priests in modern times, too.

During Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, she was ordained by a bishop to be a priest in the underground church. Part of her ministry was to give the sacraments to women in prison, Zatsick says.

“If she were caught, she would have been subject to torture, to death, to life imprisonment,” Zatsick said. “After the wall fell in the 1980s, Pope John Paul II found out about the ordination and he nullified it.”

Both women risk excommunication for their actions. O’Callaghan says she’s already been put on notice.

“We have been reported to the bishop of Orlando, and we have received letters just this past week asking me to reconsider, because it is not according to the laws of the church,” O’Callaghan said.

In a statement, Orlando Bishop Thomas Wenski said, “Any attempt by a woman to simulate ordination would negatively affect her communion with the Catholic Church.

“For the good of her soul, I ask Ms. O’Callaghan to reconsider an action that would place her outside of the communion of the Church and be a cause of grave scandal to the faithful of the diocese.”

O’Callaghan says she’s upset by the threat of excommunication, but it also places her in the ranks of Saints Joan of Arc and Thomas Aquinas.

“We are in good company, because there have been saints canonized who were once excommunicated (from the church.)” O’Callaghan said.

O’Callaghan is married to a former Catholic priest, and they lead a small “house church” in Ocala. She says she’s taken all the seminary courses needed to become a priest. Now, she’ll be able to hear confessions, anoint the sick and, most importantly, lead Mass.

Zatsick hopes being a priest will amplify her anti-war message – a message that was reinforced when her own son was injured in Iraq.

“I had the strength and the courage to walk into Walter Reed, not knowing if he would live or die. So I know I have the courage to walk the pathway of peace,” Zatsick said.

The women say they’ve considered joining a religion that accepts women as ministers. But O’Callaghan says that was never really an option for her.

“The Catholic tradition is in my bones, from my parents on. The Roman Catholic Womenpriests are loyal women. We’re doing this because we love the church and we want to renew it. I can’t picture myself anywhere else but in the Catholic tradition,” O’Callaghan said.

The ordination is scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 3 at St. Andrews United Church of Christ in Sarasota. Catholic or not, the women say everyone is welcome.