By Mary Wisniewski
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.
Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.
In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church - the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.
"It has no sting for me," said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. "It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives."
The ordination of women as priests, along with the issues of married priests and birth control, represents one of the big divides between U.S. Catholics and the Vatican hierarchy. Seventy percent of U.S. Catholics believe that women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.
The former pope, Benedict XVI, reaffirmed the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Male priests have been stripped of their holy orders for participating in ordination ceremonies for women.
In a statement last week, Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz called the planned ceremony by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests a "simulated ordination" in opposition to Catholic teaching.
"The simulation of a sacrament carries very serious penal sanctions in Church law, and Catholics should not support or participate in Saturday's event," Kurtz said.
The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to be priests because Jesus Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of a female priesthood said Jesus was acting only according to the customs of his time.
They also note that he chose women, like Mary Magdalene, as disciples, and that the early Church had women priests, deacons and bishops.
The ceremony, held at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Louisville, was attended by about 200 men and women. Many identified themselves to a Reuters reporter as Catholics, but some declined to give their names or their churches.
'NEW ERA OF INCLUSIVITY'
The modern woman priest movement started in Austria in 2002, when seven women were ordained by the Danube River by an independent Catholic bishop. Other women were later ordained as bishops, who went on to ordain more women priests and deacons.
"As a woman priest, Rosemarie is leading, not leaving the Catholic Church, into a new era of inclusivity," said Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan during her sermon Saturday. "As the Irish writer James Joyce reminded us, the word 'Catholic' means 'Here comes everybody!'"
Smead had to leave the rigorous Carmelite life due to health reasons, and earned a bachelor's degree in theology and a doctorate in counseling psychology. She taught at Indiana University for 26 years, and works as a couples and family therapist.
During the ordination ceremony, Smead wept openly as nearly everyone in the audience came up and laid their hands on her head in blessing. Some whispered, "Thanks for doing this for us."
During the communion service, Smead and other woman priests lifted the plates and cups containing the sacramental bread and wine to bless them.
A woman in the audience murmured, "Girl, lift those plates. I've been waiting a long time for this."
One of those attending the service was Stewart Pawley, 32, of Louisville, who said he was raised Catholic and now only attends on Christmas and Easter. But he said he would attend services with Smead when she starts to offer them in Louisville.
"People like me know it's something the Catholic Church will have to do," said Pawley.
(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mohammad Zargham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kentucky-woman-ordained-priest-defiance-roman-catholic-church-165007025.html
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It is now time for me to get very busy again, as the Newport Beach Film Festival has returned.? From April 25th to May 2nd, the 14th annual Newport Beach Film Festival will be in full swing and I will be there to provide whatever coverage I can.? As always, the festival takes place in beautiful Newport Beach, right along the coast.? Over 350 films from over 50 countries will be screened during the week with special nightly events, galas, seminars, and more.? Additionally, the Newport Beach Film Festival offers film goers the opportunity to meet the filmmakers. ?Directors, screenwriters, actors, and more are all eager to share their work and will provide an exclusive inside look at the industry during post-screening Q&A?s.? That is a lot going on in the world of film for Orange County this coming week.
Every week a slew of blurb-worthy games debuts in iTunes App Store and Google Play. Often, the more innovative and independent publishers test the waters by releasing on iOS. Here?s a roundup of the five best games recently released.
The Other Brothers from 3D Attack Interactive is the closest a mobile game has come to replicating the Super Mario Bros. experience. Instead of plumbers, brothers Joe and Jim are auto mechanics roped into the typical rescue mission involving a distressed damsel. The game environment is grittier than Mario, featuring mobsters with uppercut attacks and machine guns, guard dogs, and arduous boss fights. Still, the game mechanics are practically the same as any episodic platformer, as you stomp baddies to increase your overall score and collect doves, which functions similarly to rings in SEGA?s Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game was developed to eventually support Android gaming, so keep your fingers crossed.
Nimble Quest, developed by Nimblebit, is another throwback mobile game combining fantasy role-playing and the arcade classic Snake. Instead of a rectangular snake consuming squares and circles, you steer a ?conga line of heroes,? all of which boast specialized abilities and attacks. The better you do slashing bad guys, the more heroes you unlock. Collecting blue and green gems enables you to purchase power-ups. There is an in-app purchasing system, but it isn?t necessary to enjoy the game. Nimble Quest?s gameplay can be a bit grinding yet remains pleasant. The game is set up with with service Everyplay, so you can share video replays of your most impressive Nimble Quest sessions via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and email.
With Into the Dead, PikPok Games delivered one of the most visually memorable and intense first person running games available as a mobile app. You?re dropped into a field and must run away from packs of the undead. The developers smartly offer four different control schemes from the get-go to make players as comfortable as they can be as the dodge snarling corpses and inanimate obstacles. At first, you?re equipped only with your faceless character?s shallow breathing, but you can pick up weapons during your endless escape. As a freemium game, you can purchase coins right away and ?fast unlock? all the weapons. If you don?t feel like dropping your next paycheck on a mobile game, play through and complete missions to unlock items. The horror elements here aren?t for younger kids, as the last sounds you hear at a run?s end are screams and the zombie munching on your character.
