A reader writes:
There is a story making the rounds here that the Vatican-during the Communist days in some European countries- allowed a few woman to be ordained and secrety function in those communist countries.The story even says that one of these women is at Catholic U in Washington but has never functioned..the story is that some did function…some did not..Vatican ‘recalled’ their ordinations after having ‘done’ them???Have you every read or heard of this?
Yes, I am familiar with this, though the story as you received it has been somewhat garbled. The Vatican never gave permission for the ordination of women in Communist countries. What happened was this:
In 1967 Czechoslovakian bishop consecrated the priest Fr. Felix Maria Davidek as a bishop and, the new Bishop Davidek was reportedly assigned to work with the Czechoslovakian underground church.
I do not have information on whether this was done with the Holy See’s approval (which is required for the consecration of a bishop) or not.
This was an extremely chaotic time in the Czechoslovakian Catholic community, and many priests and bishops were ordained, including married priests and bishops, contrary to the requirements of canon law and in ways that the Holy See later judged to raise questions about the validity of these ordinations and consecrations.
Consequently,
OL’ JOE RATZINGER HAD TO CLEAN UP THE MESS.
But not all of the people who had been ordained–including the married bishops–were willing to go along with the Holy See’s efforts to resolve the situation (many of the priests, in particular, objected to the conditional ordinations that they were expected to undergo to resolve doubts about the validity of their orders, and the married bishops didn’t want to give up being married bishops), and as of 2000 there was still an "underground" church functioning in the Czech Republic–in violation of the Holy See’s laws–though the CDF expressly pointed out this church is not actually underground.
Bishop Davidek (who died in 1988) was a principal chaos agent in all of this and is singled out by name in the CDF document linked above as having performed ordinations of dubious validity.
In 1990 it emerged that
HE HAD ALSO ATTEMPTED ORDINATION ON AT LEAST ONE AND POSSIBLY SEVERAL WOMEN.
So naturally
THIS BECAME A CAUSE CELEBRE AMONG WOMENS ORDINATION ADVOCATES.
And so did the case of Ludmilla Javorova, who is the only woman to have publicly admitted to having been ordained by Bishop Davidek.
However, as is clear from Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (among other things), her ordination and those of any other women are invalid.
What we have here was thus not a case of the Vatican allowing the ordination of women but of a rogue bishop sowing chaos behind the Iron Curtain by ordaining bunches of people, incluidng at least one woman, in doubtful or clearly invalid ways.
Anti-Commie bishops make the baby Jesus cry?
Uh, no. All of the good bishops are Anti-Commie.
Thank you for this most helpful info.Two very close priest-friends of mine bring this up on occasion.Now I may be able to have a few salvos myself.
Very much appreciated and thank you
What was it about the ordinations (of the men, I know that women cannot be validly ordained) that raised doubts as to their validity?
Well, if the original bishop’s consecration of a new bishop was invalid, then the new bishop’s not really a bishop. So all of the new bishop’s ordinations are invalid. He’s just J. Random Priest and can’t do it. Has no power handed down through the apostles from Jesus.
I don’t think that’s it, Maureen. From the above, and the wikipedia entry linked under Davidek’s name, there is no question as to his valid consecration as bishop. There is something else, unspecified in the materials at hand, in the “manner” of the ordinations that did invalidate them, or may have done.