Lesbian scholar faces expulsion from the Church

BY SIMON CALDWELL
A LESBIAN feminist academic faces instant excommunication from the Catholic Church if she goes ahead with her plan to be ordained Britain's first woman 'bishop', Church sources revealed this week.
Dr Elizabeth Stuart, a professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the Anglican Centre of King Alfred College, Winchester, aims to be ordained a bishop in the Open Episcopal Church, a Protestant sect.
The date and location of her consecration are a secret but the event could re-ignite the row over the possibility of women bishops in the Church of England.
Catholic sources, however, say Dr Stuart, who considers herself a practising Catholic, will put herself outside communion with the Catholic Church as soon as she formally joins the sect.
"Technically she would have apostasised," said Mgr Canon John Nelson, a canon lawyer of the Diocese of Portsmouth.
"To be ordained in another Church is a formal statement of rejection of the Catholic Church : . if you want to be a Catholic then you have to accept that there are certain requirements or conditions. You can't be a member of other Churches at the same time, — you can't be in them all."
He added: "The Catholic Church wouldn't recognise her ordination anyway — as a priest, let alone a bishop."
Mgr Nelson said the bishops might be forced to make a formal declaration of excommunication if Dr Stuart's actions caused "real conflict" among the faithful.
He referred to the excommunication in July of seven women who took part in an ordination ceremony on the River Danube.
The Vatican said the Catholic Church had no authority to ordain women, and such "simulation" of the sacrament of ordination was "valid and null" and constituted a grave offence to the "constitution of the Church" and an "affront to the dignity of women".
Dr Stuart is likely to be consecrated by Richard Palmer and Jonathan Blake, the founders of the sect, which offers support to clergy who feel unable to work within the mainstream denominations.
According to the Southampton Daily Echo, Mr Blake was ordained a vicar in 1982 but quit in 1993 to become an "independent minister", presiding over baptisms, weddings and pet funerals.
Two years ago, he teamed up with Mr Palmer to set up the sect and was consecrated by him. The pair haVe since been joined by another bishop, Michael Wilson, and claim to have more than 20 clergy in nine parishes with another 25 ordinations planned over the next year.
Dr Stuart is understood to have set up an order within the sect called the Apostolic Society of St Bridget, after the 14th century Swedish visionary.
Dr Stuart, a once active member of the dissenting Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, first came to prominence in 1991 when she published Daring to Speak Love's Name: A Gay and Lesbian Prayer Book. This was followed in 1995 by Just Good Friends: A Lesbian and Gay Theology And Relationship.
She is a member of the Catholic Women's Network (CWN), a group listed in the Catholic Directory of England and Wales even though it supports women's ordination but refuses to support Church teaching on abortion.
The CWN is part of the National Board of Catholic Women (NBCW), a consultative body to the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.
Auxiliary Bishop Vincent Malone of Liverpool, the NBCW's "episcopal liaison", said Dr Stuart's consecration was a matter for the CWN and not for the NBCW, and ruled out any expulsion of the CWN from the Catholic Directory as a result of Dr Stuart's actions. "All organisations have maverick members," he said. "I don't think you can judge an organisation by a maverick member."
Dr Stuart and spokesmen for the CWN, the NBCW and the Open Episcopal Church were unavailable for comment as The Catholic Herald went to press.