Rochester Diocesan Priest's Prayer: Year of the Female Priest

Cleansing Fire, a blog by a rightly concerned individual in the Diocese of Rochester brought this issue to light.

First, a fact: No female will ever, ever be ordained as priest with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church. This is an infallible teaching of the Church. Period.

Now the fantasy of a priest in Pittsford as shared in the church bulletin where he is Pastor:

I know to raise the issue of women and married men to be considered as priests is unacceptable for some among us…not for me…I pray that wherever priests come from that we as God’s family would be open to allow people to serve…if you feel only male celibates should be ordained, fine, encourage and pray for that…if you feel women or married men should be considered, encourage and pray for that…wherever the vocations come from, let us just pray
pray and accept them to serve.

My prayer for this Year of the Priest is that all in our Church would be open to consider the many fine Deacons whocould be ordained to Ministerial Priesthood…that we would not be afraid to open ourselves to other Married Men becoming candidates…that our Church would use this year to study and examine whether women should be ordained as deacons…that we would consider the possibility that God has planted the vocation to Priesthood in women’s lives and
we would seriously try to discern that…that even for Bishops, we would return to the traditional process where the people of the Diocese had a say in offering candidates…I am sure that these ideas are not a part of Pope Benedict’s plan for this year, but as long as we are going to focus on Priests, let’s consider all the dimensions of Priesthood and the real need our Church has.

Please pray for Fr. Kevin Murphy and the parishioners in his care. Pray for the Diocese of Rochester. +