Woman in Priestly Garb Sounds ‘a Great Echo’
MILAN - While other little girls in her hometown of Nissoria, Sicily, were dressing up and playing house, Maria Vittoria Longhitano would pretend to say Mass, dispensing cookies and chips to her toys for communion. Sometimes, she would even baptize her dolls.
As a child, she prayed to St. Rita - much venerated in Sicily - asking for her intervention to become a priest.
But the Roman Catholic Church has no place for women among its clerical ranks, as the Vatican stated forcefully over the summer when it decreed that the attempt to ordain female priests is to be considered one of the most serious crimes against church law.
Ms. Longhitano’s spiritual journey eventually led her to the Old Catholic Church, a denomination that split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century, mostly over the issue of papal infallibility. She studied theology at the University of Catania.
On May 22 - coincidentally, the feast day of St. Rita - Ms. Longhitano, 35, was ordained a priest in a ceremony in an Anglican church in Rome. She is now known as Mother Vittoria, and is preparing to lead a congregation in Sabbioneta, Lombardy (though last month she celebrated her first Mass in Sicily, where she was on vacation).
There are fewer than 300 practicing Old Catholics in Italy, according to Fritz-René Müller, the Switzerland-based bishop who ordained her. But for Italians unaccustomed to seeing women in priestly garb, Mother Vittoria’s ordination “had a great echo; it was a small earthquake,” he said.
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The entire article can be read at the New York Times
I thought this was interesting and worth sharing. I was raised Catholic/come from a large Catholic family, and this is the first time that I have heard of the Old Catholic Church
As a child, she prayed to St. Rita - much venerated in Sicily - asking for her intervention to become a priest.
But the Roman Catholic Church has no place for women among its clerical ranks, as the Vatican stated forcefully over the summer when it decreed that the attempt to ordain female priests is to be considered one of the most serious crimes against church law.
Ms. Longhitano’s spiritual journey eventually led her to the Old Catholic Church, a denomination that split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century, mostly over the issue of papal infallibility. She studied theology at the University of Catania.
On May 22 - coincidentally, the feast day of St. Rita - Ms. Longhitano, 35, was ordained a priest in a ceremony in an Anglican church in Rome. She is now known as Mother Vittoria, and is preparing to lead a congregation in Sabbioneta, Lombardy (though last month she celebrated her first Mass in Sicily, where she was on vacation).
There are fewer than 300 practicing Old Catholics in Italy, according to Fritz-René Müller, the Switzerland-based bishop who ordained her. But for Italians unaccustomed to seeing women in priestly garb, Mother Vittoria’s ordination “had a great echo; it was a small earthquake,” he said.
_________
The entire article can be read at the New York Times
I thought this was interesting and worth sharing. I was raised Catholic/come from a large Catholic family, and this is the first time that I have heard of the Old Catholic Church