Nine North American women sailed onto the St. Lawrence River to take part in an unauthorized ordination ceremony Monday, risking excommunication by the Vatican to become priests and deacons.
Dana Renolds, Kathleen Strack, Rebecca McGuyver, Regina Nicolosi and Kathy Vandenberg were named deacons by three female bishops, who claimed to have themselves been anointed secretly by their male counterparts previously, in a traditional Roman Catholic ordination ceremony aboard the Thousand Islander III, which usually ferries tourists around the picturesque Thousand Islands region in eastern Canada.
Victoria Rue, Jean St. Onge, Marie David and Michelle Birch-Conery became priests.
Wearing white robes with hand-made silk stoles -- white for priests, blue for deacons -- the nine women sang hymns and listened to liturgy, laid on the boat deck as it rocked gently in the waves and had hands laid upon them.
"We tried not to make the stoles as stiff as the men's," said Michelle Birch-Conery, the only Canadian among them.
They were joined by some 260 friends and relatives who earlier waited patiently under a hot sun to board the boat, having their bags checked first by security, as awestruck tourists and cottagers looked on, some of them cheering.
"Other Christian religions accept women priests, why not the Catholic Church," said French tourist and protestant Jeannine Lallemand when she came upon the group accidentally.
Fourteen women have already been anointed in similar river ceremonies in Europe in recent years and 65 more are hoping to join their ranks soon. But, the ordinations are not sanctioned by the Vatican.
The first seven women who ignored church doctrine against women priests and were ordained on the Danube River between Germany and Austria in 2002 were excommunicated by then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope) after they refused to retract their vows. Five of them attended the North American ceremony Monday.
"They have to make official statements against us, but privately, they encourage us," Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, one of the presiding female bishops, told reporters.
She said she ignored Ratzinger's letter excommunicating her, and hopes someday that she will be invited to speak with him, "her favorite choice for Pope" about her cause. Until then, she said she communicates "indirectly" with supporters in the Vatican hierarchy.
"Maybe, I would have done the same," she said about being pushed out, sporting a large silver cross with seven industrial diamonds embedded to symbolize the "Danube Seven."
"The first seven were not pretty, but they were strong. Eventually, there will be too many of us to ignore. The Roman Catholic Church will have to live with us," she said.
"Our ship will sail through some stormy weather, but it will not go down," echoed woman bishop Patricia Fresen.
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