15 Women Who Took Up Priestly Roles Face Excommunication
Their effort to change the policies of the Catholic Church is met by bishops' warnings. 'I'm breaking an unjust law,' one woman says.
By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer
August 11, 2006

Fifteen Roman Catholic women in the United States, including some Californians, face excommunication after taking up priestly duties following their "ordination" in recent ceremonies designed to challenge the all-male priesthood.

On Thursday, Jane Via of San Diego, who was ordained in June and planned to say her second Mass on Sunday, met for two hours with the local bishop, who laid out the ramifications of her actions. Three women in other states have received letters from diocese officials warning that they chose to excommunicate themselves when they participated in an illicit ordination near Pittsburgh on July 31. In San Jose, diocese officials warned that a woman priest there was not properly ordained. story