Hot on the heels of Newsweek’s controversial interview with Jessica Rowley, the San Jose Mercury News has another curious article, about a woman celebrating her wedding anniversary by celebrating a special mass:

Like many devout Catholics, Juanita and Don Cordero kicked off their Sept. 15 wedding anniversary by attending Mass. Four of the couple’s five grown children were in attendance, helping to mark the occasion of the Corderos’ marriage 36 years ago.

But the entire family wasn’t sitting in the front pew during the service. Instead, the Rev. Juanita Cordero, an ordained Catholic priest, was up on the altar, celebrating the Mass.

Cordero, a Los Gatos resident, has been a priest since July. Prior to her ordination she spent 10 years as a Holy Names nun. Though extremely happy in the order, she still felt that something was missing in her life.

“God kept calling me to something else,” she explains. “I didn’t know what it was, or rather, what I thought it might be was something that just wasn’t possible for women at the time.”

After a decade in the convent, she left to try to figure out what God had in store for her. She met and fell in love with Don, a former Jesuit priest. The couple married, settled in town and started a family. Their lives were full: For three decades Don taught astronomy and was a counselor at West Valley College in Saratoga, while Juanita began her career as a teacher in the child development/education division at De Anza College in Cupertino. She also works as a nurse and Don serves on the board of trustees for the West Valley/Mission College District.

Ever committed to her faith, Cordero remained in close contact with clergy members from various religions. She even contemplated becoming an Episcopalian minister when that role became available to women. But, she says, “In my bones I’m Catholic, and the Lord kept calling me back to that faith.”

Then she attended a conference of Women’s Ordination Worldwide, an international organization that advocates for the ordination of women as deacons, priests and bishops. She met members of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, whose numbers included Bishop Patricia Fresen. Fresen had been ordained a priest in 2003 by three German bishops. The trio chose to hold Fresen’s ordination ceremony aboard a boat on Germany’s Danube River.

“Not only was this a symbol of ‘baptism,’ it also happened to be outside of the jurisdiction of other bishops who might try to put a stop to it,” Cordero says with a laugh. But all three of the bishops were in good standing with the Vatican, which Cordero says is the key to the “validity” of Fresen’s ordination. Fresen herself was then elevated to bishop two years later.

“The Vatican, of course, doesn’t recognize women as priests,” Cordero notes. “We now have a pope who’d like to return the Mass to Latin, so that’s not likely to change anytime soon. But throughout history, if a bishop or priest had been validly ordained by another bishop, even if that new bishop or priest did something wrong he was still validly ordained. My succession line comes from those male bishops so we are validly ordained, even if the Vatican considers us ‘illicit.’ “

She adds that the Vatican is actively seeking the identity of the renegade German bishops to call a halt to the female ordinations, but that she and her colleagues across the globe keep the bishops’ names a closely guarded secret. “A priest in Canada who came out publicly in support of women being ordained got his parish taken away from him. So anyone who’s connected to us will definitely get his hands slapped by the Vatican,” she says.

Cordero talked extensively with Fresen, who had lived and taught in South Africa before apartheid was outlawed. “Patricia kept telling me that change has to come from within people in the church, as opposed to the hierarchy, and that some laws need to be broken,” says Cordero.

“In South Africa she had been jailed for opening her school to black children, but knew that law was unjust. I felt this was the same thing: Women need to take a stand, and we can’t wait any longer.”

At the close of that WOW conference, Cordero joined Fresen and 28 other women from various spots around the world in a coast-to-coast bus trip. Their destination: every historical place ever empowered by women.

“That was the turning point for me,” Cordero says. “I felt the call, and I just knew I had to do this.”

After several years of study and earning a degree in theology, Cordero became the first woman in California to be ordained as a Catholic priest (another of Cordero’s colleagues, Victoria Rue, was ordained earlier in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rue teaches comparative religious studies, women’s studies and theater at San Jose State University). Says Cordero, “The ordinations in Pittsburgh, where I became a deacon, were the first to take place in the United States. There were only four protestors, which we thought was a good thing. One person’s sign said, ‘Jesus was a man.’ Well, duh! We all just laughed.”

If Cordero’s name seems vaguely familiar, it’s because she was among a crop of women “ordained” in July, and mentioned in The Deacon’s Bench right here.

Well, what can I say? As a member of the mainstream media, I’m disappointed in the way my profession continues to report this phenomenon with deadpan earnestness and unquestioning certainty. I mean, I know from newsroom experience how ill-informed the press can be when it comes to matters of religion and faith. But this is something else. This ignorance is willful.

The reporters covering these ordinations rarely raise a question about the validity of them, and almost never seek a second opinion or outside voice that might cast doubt on what these women have done. Any reporter worth her salt would seek comment from a canon lawyer, a diocesan spokesperson, a bishop, or even just an ordinary Catholic or two in the pews. That would give balance and context. But no. Instead, the press has, for the most part, just accepted these ordinations at face value. (Professional tip: this is never a good idea. I remember someone who once did that with some suspicious memos, and lost his job.)

To call the coverage of these ordinations irresponsible would be an understatement.

As for the ordinations themselves: when I told my wife about them, she was incredulous. “But when you’re ordained, you make a promise of obedience, right? Who are they obedient to? Aren’t they being disobedient?”

That about says it.

Photo: Juanita Cordero and her family. By Mark Tantrum, San Jose Mercury News.