Fr. Roy Bourgeois stands with Dennis Kusinich at last year's march to the gates of Ft. Benning.The Vatican has informed a Roman Catholic priest in the United States that he will be excommunicated next week for participating in a ceremony it considers illicit and invalid: the ordination of a woman as a priest.
The priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, 69, has been a member of the Maryknoll religious order for 36 years. He said he was anguished at the thought of excommunication, but could not disavow his actions. (read the full NY Times story here)
Thousands gather to remember those killed by graduates of the School of the Americas, renamed WHINSEC, this year. Fr. Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch, addressed the crowd to talk about why he started the protest, but he could not avoid addressing what was on everyone's minds: his excommunication from the church.
"Over the years you have heard me speak of injustice in in Latin America, and injustice in this war in Iraq, but now I must talk about the injustice in our church," he said to a silent audience.
"The exclusion of women in our church is a great injustice," he said. "I was told that by tonight I must recant my belief in women's ordiation in public, or face excommunication. After much prayer and descernment, I have decided that I can not recant."
With those words, Bourgeois left the stage. The crowd burst into applause and tears for his decision.
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