Patricia Fresen (born 7 December 1940) is a South African writer, a Catholic theologian, and a former nun. [1]
Her parents were from Germany and Ireland. After school, Fresen became a member of the Dominican Order. Fresen studied theology, pedagogic and languages and subsequently became a teacher. Fresen was then sent to Rome to study theology. She later worked in Pretoria in a Catholic seminary as teacher in Homiletics, Systematic theology and Spirituality. [1] She then taught at St Augustine's College in Johannesburg. [2]
Bishop Romulo Antonio Braschi conducted an ordination ceremony for Fresen in Barcelona in 2003. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had previously decreed that the "attempted ordination of women" by Romulo Braschi was null and void and, as a result, imposed the penalty of excommunication on him and those who received ordination from him for reasons including the "attempted ordination" as well as participating in schism. [3] Together with German writers and theologians Gisela Forster and Ida Raming, Fresen is head of the international organization "Roman Catholic Womenpriests International", which promotes the ordination of women as Catholic priests; ordination of women is currently not allowed within the Catholic Church. [4] [5] [6]
The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) is an international fraternity of traditionalist Catholic priests founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a leading traditionalist voice at the Second Vatican Council with the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers until 1968. The society was initially established as a pious union of the Catholic Church with the permission of François Charrière, the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland. In 2022, the society reached over 700 priestly members, with 1,135 total members.
Richard Nelson Williamson is a British independent Traditionalist Catholic bishop who opposes the changes in the church brought about by the Second Vatican Council.
The Mariavite Church is today one of two independent Christian churches collectively known as Mariavites who first emerged from the religious inspiration of Polish noblewoman and nun, Feliksa Kozłowska (1862-1921) in the late 19th-century. Initially, it was a renewal movement seeking reform in Polish Catholicism. The movement was an attempt to replicate the simplicity of the life of Mary, in Latin, qui Mariae vitam imitantur,, thus vita Mariae, the Life of Mary, gave the movement its name.
Walter Kasper is a German Catholic cardinal and theologian. He is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, having served as its president from 2001 to 2010.
Bernard Fellay is a Swiss bishop and former superior general of the Traditionalist Catholic priestly fraternity Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). In 1988, Pope John Paul II announced that Fellay and three others were automatically excommunicated for being consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, an act that the Holy See described as "unlawful" and "schismatic". Archbishop Lefebvre, and Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer who co-consecrated these four bishops, were also said to be automatically excommunicated. At that time, he was the youngest bishop of the Roman Catholic Church at 30 years old.
Alfonso de Galarreta Genua,, is a Spanish-born Argentine bishop of the Society of Saint Pius X. Bishop de Galarreta has served as the First Assistant of the Society of Saint Pius X, working under the direction of the Superior General Fr. Davide Pagliarani, since 2018. In addition to this, Bishop de Galaretta has been the President of the SSPX—Vatican Commission since 2009, which directs the Society's correspondence with the Holy See.
Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger is a teacher and former Benedictine nun who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church when she and six others were ordained as priests by an Independent Catholic bishop in 2002, she called herself a Roman Catholic priest, and she refused to recant. She was ordained a bishop in 2003 along with Gisela Forster; reportedly, the ordination was performed by Roman Catholic bishops whose identity remains a secret.
Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln in Nebraska, from 1992 to 2012. He is known for often taking conservative stands on social issues.
Latae sententiae and ferendae sententiae are ways sentences are imposed in the Catholic Church in its canon law.
The Danube Seven are a group of seven women from Germany, Austria and the United States who were ordained as priests on a ship cruising the Danube river on 29 June 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, Ferdinand Regelsberger, and a third unknown bishop.
Rómulo Antonio Braschi is an Argentine independent Catholic bishop, not in communion with the Catholic Church. Braschi was labeled as being an episcopus vagans in the early 2000s.
The Écône consecrations were a set of episcopal consecrations that took place in Écône, Switzerland, on 30 June 1988. They were performed by Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, and the bishops who were consecrated were four priests of Lefebvre's Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). The consecrations, performed against the explicit orders of Pope John Paul II, represented a milestone in the troubled relationship of Lefebvre and the SSPX with the Church leadership. The Holy See's Congregation for Bishops issued a decree signed by its Prefect Cardinal Bernardin Gantin declaring that Lefebvre had incurred automatic excommunication by consecrating the bishops without papal consent, thus putting himself and his followers in schism.
Call to Action (CTA) is an American progressive organization that advocates a variety of changes in the Catholic Church. Call To Action's goals are to change church disciplines and teachings in such areas as mandatory celibacy for priests, the male-only priesthood, the selection process for bishops and popes, and opposition to artificial contraception.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) is an independent international organization that claims a connection to the Roman Catholic Church. It is descended from the Danube Seven, a group of women who assert that they were ordained as priests in 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, before being excommunicated by the Vatican, and their request for a revocation of the excommunication denied, in Decree on the Attempted Ordination of Some Catholic Women. According to a book published by the organization, Women Find a Way: The Movement and Stories of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, at least two other unnamed bishops were involved in the ordination. In addition, the RCWP considers these bishops to be in good standing, and the RCWP says the bishops acted in full apostolic succession.
The Women's Ordination Conference is an organization in the United States that works to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops in the Catholic Church.
In the liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church, the term ordination refers to the means by which a person is included in one of the holy orders of bishops, priests or deacons. The teaching of the Catholic Church on ordination, as expressed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, is that only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, the male priesthood is not considered by the church a matter of policy but an unalterable requirement of God. As with priests and bishops, the church ordains only men as deacons.
Ida Raming is a German author, teacher and theologian.
Gisela Forster is a German writer, teacher, and Catholic theologian.
Decree on the Attempted Ordination of Some Catholic Women is a canonical decree issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and approved by Pope John Paul II on December 21, 2002. It can be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 95 (2003). The decree is in response to Romulo Antonio Braschi ordaining seven Catholic women to the priesthood of his movement, the Catholic Apostolic Charismatic Church of Jesus the King, on June 29, 2002, and is a follow up to a decree of excommunication of Braschi and the women issued on August 5, 2002.