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Ordaining Female Catholic Priests

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Jacki Lyden in for Tom Ashbrook

Catholics in America and Europe and beyond defying the Vatican and ordaining women priests. We hear the condemnations and the amens.

Members of the Women's Ordination Conference celebrate a mass at the Anglican Church Rome. Groups that have long demanded that women be ordained Roman Catholic priests took advantage of the Vatican's crisis over clerical sex abuse to press their cause. (AP)
Members of the Women's Ordination Conference celebrate a mass at the Anglican Church Rome. Groups that have long demanded that women be ordained Roman Catholic priests took advantage of the Vatican's crisis over clerical sex abuse to press their cause. (AP)

The issue of female ordination has beset the Roman Catholic church for decades. But increasingly, the Vatican is facing a revolt on the issue, even as it cracks down.

On three continents: Europe, Australia and America, outspoken Catholic priests are defying this strict Vatican tenet. In the U.S., a longstanding American is this one more test for Holy See.

Or, is the church facing a revolt that my force dissenters to the fore?

This hour On Point: Rome, and the challenge to expand the priesthood.
-Jacki Lyden
Guests:

Eileen Di Franco, a member of the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests, she was ordained as a priest in 2006 and has a Masters in Divinity.

Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a priest for 39 years with the Maryknoll Order.

Pia de Solenni, a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, she received her doctorate in sacred theology summa cum laude from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.

More:

Here is a clip from the move Pink Smoke Over The Vatican

http://youtu.be/VOJYlK4kefA

Here's a news report on the ordination of women.
http://youtu.be/q0osK_AwbLM

This program aired on July 27, 2011.

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