BBC, Aug. 5, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2173868.stm
The Vatican has excommunicated seven women who were ordained as priests by a controversial archbishop.
The women had refused to give up their claim to be priests.
The seven, from Germany, Austria and the United States, were ordained in June in Austria during a ceremony led by Argentine cleric Romulo Antonio Braschi, who is from a breakaway church.
The women were given time to renounce their ordination, but the Vatican watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said they showed no sign of what it termed “repentance”.
Women cannot be ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church.
One of the women, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, said they planned to appeal against the order, which effectively casts them out of the Roman Catholic Church, removing their right to take part in its rites.