Here’s a press release from the Womenpriests Movement:
In Toronto on May 27, 2007, Marie Bouclin of Sudbury, Ontario will be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest by bishop Patricia Fresen of Germany.
Patricia Fresen, originally from South Africa where she was a nun for 45 years, is presently the international Program Coordinator of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement based in Germany. Patricia Fresen was ordained a bishop in 2005 by an active Roman Catholic bishop in good standing.
This ordination ceremony is significant in two ways. It is the first ordination ceremony of the RCWP movement to take place on land in a church. All other public ceremonies have taken place on boats, usually in international waters, to avoid jurisdictional conflict with diocesan bishops. It is also significant, because, for the first time in North America, a man will be ordained in a public ceremony in the RCWP movement.
This is a movement that is making history in the Roman Catholic Church. It was born in 2002 and already there are 14 women priests in the U.S. and one in Canada, Michele Birch Conery of Parksville, BC. Also, there are over 100 candidates in training worldwide. At the Toronto ceremony, two other women from the U.S. will be ordained to the priesthood along with Marie Bouclin. Three others will be ordained as deacons at the same ceremony, one from the U.S. and two from Canada, Monica Kilburn-Smith of Calgary and Jim Lauder of Victoria, BC.
Download the entire press release here.