No truth” “

On Saturday 2 July Geneviève Beney became the first Frenchwoman to be “ordained” priest, in the course of a ceremony held on board a steamer on the river Saône at Lyon and officiated by three women “bishops”. The event caused the automatic excommunication of the woman by the Catholic Church and aroused a heated debate in France about the ministry of the priesthood, and the role and responsibility of women within the Catholic Church. THE CEREMONY. The steamer left the quayside at five in the afternoon on 2 July with 60 passengers on board – including a small group of journalists – who sang hymns during the celebration. Geneviève Beney is 55 years old. She is married to a Protestant and the couple are childless. She graduated in theology from the faculty of Strasbourg in 1980, before gradually distancing herself from the Catholic Church in which she no longer “found a role for herself”. After involvement in some “reformist Catholic movements”, she participated in 2002 in the “ordination” of seven women in a boat on the Danube, presided over by the Argentinean archbishop Romulo Braschi, member of the “Charismatic Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ the King”, not recognized by the Holy See. After a year and a half of formation via Internet, she became a “deacon” in 2004. On board the boat she issued a communiqué declaring among other things: “Our transgression as women priests is legitimate because it is a question that recalls human dignity…Being able freely to respond to a vocation received is an inalienable right”. The three women “bishops” who “ordained” her are of various nationalities (German, Austrian and South African). With regard to the Catholic Church, they claim that it “has lost its original philosophy and has focused too much on sexuality. But it is our Church and a sick friend is not to be abandoned”. THE CARDINAL’S APPEAL. Three days before the ceremony, the archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal PHILIPPE BARBARIN, had appealed to Geneviève Beney to abandon her project. “Such a ceremony – says a press release put out by the archdiocese – would constitute a grave act of rupture for the Catholic Church”. The archbishop also made a point of underlining that during the ceremony “there will be no truth in the words pronounced, or in the acts performed in that circumstance. For many Catholics, it will only be the cause of useless injuries and sufferings”. The communiqué ends with an exhortation to “safeguard unity in the Spirit”. Archbishop ROBERT WATTEBLED of Nimes also intervened in the controversy: he reiterated in a communiqué that “no Catholic community can in any way support such an initiative”. The South African “bishop” PATRICIA FRESEN, who officiated the ceremony, replied to the two appeals: “The only way to change an unjust law is to violate it”. The “movement” now consists of a dozen women priests, while a further 65 are receiving training. The next “ordination” will be on a paddle steamer between Canada and the USA. PRIESTHOOD AND WOMEN’S QUESTION. “Does committing a gesture outside that cannot be committed inside the Church have any sense?”. REGINE DU CHARLAT, nun and theologian, replies as follows to the provocation of Lyon. In a long interview given to the French Catholic daily “La Croix”, she analyses the questions raised and explains: “The ministry is not a right, it is a mission. Of course, a women’s question still exists within the Church. But by exclusively posing the question of women priests, we lose sight of the problem as a whole”, which needs to be tackled “in the right way and in a more dispassionate manner”. But how – Regine du Charlat was asked –would you reply to a woman who felt called to the priesthood? “A priest – replies the theologian – does not decide himself to become a priest. Today, too much emphasis is placed on the personal dimension of vocation. Sometimes, a bishop says no to a candidate to the priesthood. So a person can feel called, and can aspire to the priesthood, but cannot become a priest by his own volition. Moreover, tackling the question of the female priesthood on the basis of the access of women to greater responsibilities in the Church is to confuse levels. The priest is not someone who decides everything for himself. He isn’t the managing director of a firm”.