Fantasy Island comes to Boston

Yesterday's Boston Globe had an article about some feminist provocateurs staging a pseudo-ordination; it was the usual mix of gushing and vagueness, and failed to get across the important point that, according to Catholic teaching, the "ordination" ceremony will have zero sacramental effect on the poncho ladies who undergo it.

In this case, the e-mail responses sent to the writer were actually more interesting than the original article!

I hope the Archdiocese will make it clear that normal ecumenical relations among the Christian denominations and the Church are damaged by an event like this, and will remain damaged until there is an apology and a promise to reform. That is because this service is not being held in some neutral civic building, but in the house of a particular Protestant assembly in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, called "The Church of the Covenant". It is not so much a religious service, really, as a demonstration, openly fomenting heresy and rebellion against the Catholic Church; it is an attack on the Church, an open attempt to divide the Church, and thus a breach of normal respect.

In this case the Protestant house of worship has two denominational affiliations: United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA. I think the Archdiocese of Boston should cut off normal ecumenical contacts with those two denominations until they deliver some expression of regret for the offense their member group has so thoughtlessly given.