The news is spreading, thanks to misleading news reports, on the ordination of 9 women scheduled for next Monday in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

Let us not turn this thread into a debate on women’s ordination (unless you would like to address the issue of if the original group was really, as they claim, ordained by actual Catholic bishops, would they be priests?) . Let us stick to the matter at hand which is, in this post, the press coverage.

First, the basics: Here’s the press release from the Women’s Ordination Conference:

On July 25, 2005, nine North American women will be ordained as priests or deacons in the Roman Catholic Church in a boat on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), the largest and oldest organization working for women priests in the United States, avidly supports these ordinations.

The ordinations are in conjunction with the group’s International Conference, being held in Ottawa the preceding weekend.

Now, let’s look at the coverage and the headlines

B.C. Woman to be ordained Catholic priest from the National Post

Local Catholic Woman to be Ordained from Minnesota. Now this one is an interesting case – her husband is a deacon of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul

For thousands of years, men have led the Catholic Church, however some studies now show as many as 60 percent of Catholics approve of ordaining women.

One Minnesota woman is preparing to join that sacred brotherhood, but some feel her decision to follow her faith is a breach of beliefs.

…Her leap of faith could leave the lifelong Catholic on the outside of a church in which she believes. Regina Nicolosi fully expects to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church, but said that will not keep her from practicing her faith.

She expects to hold mass in her house and to keep attending services at her church in Red Wing, Minn.

The Knight-Ridder wire is putting "ordained" in quotation marks in their stories.

Watsonville resident heads to Canada to be ordained from the Santa Cruz paper

Victoria Rue, a Watsonville resident and religion professor at San Jose State, is finally getting her wish: She’s going to be ordained as a Catholic priest next week on a river in Canada near Lake Ontario.

Well, kind of.

Because the Catholic Church only allows men to become priests, Rue is doing things differently. She and eight other women from across the country have arranged a special ordination ceremony, which will follow the two-day International Conference on Women’s Ordination.

"These ordinations are part of a growing global movement of women within the Catholic Church that challenges the Vatican to open its priesthood to us," Rue said from her Watsonville home.

The quote from the priest, if accurate, is weird. If not accurate, it’s weird too. Anyway:

Although the ceremony will not be recognized by the Catholic Church, Rue contends it will be legitimate because she and the others will be ordained by three female bishops who themselves were ordained by three male Roman Catholic bishops in 2002.

The Rev. Roberto Garcia of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Watsonville said he welcomes Rue’s decision with "open arms" but said it’s not consistent with church doctrine.

"I agree with the present day doctrine of the Catholic Church, and that’s quite simply this: Only men can be priests. It’s what Jesus Christ wanted and made clear," Garcia said in Spanish.

Whatever.

Anyway, the issue is: how should reporters be naming and claiming this business? The KRT solution of putting ordained in scare quotes doesn’t work because they are, indeed, being ordained. It’s not a Catholic ordination, but neither is it when someone is ordained a Presbyterian minister. That’s okay.
No, the issue is the identification of all of this and subsequent actions as "Catholic." No, they are not going to be Catholic priests after this. Sorry. And you don’t even have to get very complicated about it. I can’t sit here and have the members of my family vote and proclaim me as the Democratic nominee for president. Institutions don’t work that way. There are, to put it simplistically, chains of command and identity which are broken here, not just because of the femaleness of the ordinands, but because of the fact that the original women (including the "bishops" who will be doing this batch) have been excommunicated. Duh.

There are actually several break-off denominations of the Catholic Church, but they all have modifiers. American Catholic Church, and so on. When they ordain, they are ordaining priests or whatever of the American Catholic Church, and they are "American Catholic" priests.

The gist of these stories is that these women will be "Catholic" (which everyone understands as a shorthand for Roman Catholic HQ in Rome, even if that’s imprecise) priests and the only glitch is that they are not "recognized" as such by "the Vatican." But such is not the case, is it?

After the ceremonies, Rue said she plans to return home to Watsonville and formally hold mass in her home, something she’s been doing informally since she moved to town two years ago with her female partner.

"I hope to administer the sacraments," said Rue, referring to communion and baptizing children into the Catholic Church.

And on those conferring the ordination?

The Vatican, which doesn’t allow women to serve as priests, excommunicated seven women ordained in 2002 in Europe. At least two male Catholic bishops secretly participated in the European ceremony, Birch-Conery said.

The names of the bishops will not be made public until their deaths, she said.

Three of the women ordained in 2002 will be part of the Ontario ceremony later this month, Birch-Conery said.

"The Vatican is in a tough position, as are we, so hopefully we get it all sorted out as time goes by," she said. "Until we address this gender issue we’re actually going nowhere in this church, except round and round in circles."

Of course, this would be easier if Church representatives made this point – The Archbishop of Ottawa has, sort of.

If the USCCB was interested in being useful, the primary office it would have would be that of media liasons whose job it would be, not to explain boring pastoral statements, but to gently and politely correct errors in media coverage, be proactive in being a resource – I mean, anyone with a brain could see this was coming and the kind of coverage it would get. A "Get Your Definitions Right" office of the USCCB and the Canadian bishops’ office should be on the case before the stories are even written.