Is there anything less newsworthy than the mostly American “womenpriest” movement protesting the Roman Catholic Church? Is there anything that’s more of a stale rerun?
A feminist deciding she’s going to be ordained a priest in the Catholic Church has all the same weight as my declaration that I have named myself the new anchor of the NBC Nightly News. It sounds slightly pathetic. But NBC keeps publicizing this, on Sunday's Today using an 80-year-old woman as their adorable subject. I’d shoot back: “Oh look, it’s a great-grandmother beating a dead horse.”
Feminist NBC correspondent Cynthia McFadden -- a regular member of the Pantsuit Patrol promoting Hillary Clinton for president -- celebrating this elderly "dynamo" as a "radical" fighting the male chauvinist pigs:
LESTER HOLT: Now to a newly ordained priest who was probably listening closely to what Pope Francis had to say during Mass this morning. 80-year-old Rita Lucey took part in a special ceremony on Saturday. Her priesthood won't be recognized by the Catholic Church, but as NBC’s Cynthia McFadden tells us, that’s not stopping her from answering her calling.
CYNTHIA McFADDEN: Rita Lucey is a dynamo.
RITA LUCEY: Can you believe 63 years?
McFADDEN: Yes, she's 80 years old and has been married 63 years.
Mr. LUCEY, husband: She’s a seeker and she likes to find new things.
McFADDEN: And yesterday Rita Lucey did something radical, she poked a well manicured finger in the eye of the established Catholic Church and became a priest. That’s right, a priest, although one the church refuses to recognize. Is becoming a priest as much as a political statement as a religious one?
LUCEY: Yes. You really hit the nail on the head. Isn't it wonderful?
McFADDEN: There are 150 other women in the U.S. alone who have taken the same step. Many were previously nuns. Some, like Mrs. Lucey are not only female, they're married. How is this going to work? How can a priest have a husband?
LUCEY: I wouldn't get rid of him after 63 years, you know?
McFADDEN: He’s probably relieved to hear that.
There was a brief rebuttal from a supporter of Catholic orthodoxy, but the feminists replied almost immediately:
McFADDEN: But NBC religion consultant George Weigel says these women have gotten it all wrong.
GEORGE WEIGEL: Women have been running the Catholic Church in the United States for the past 200 years.
UNKNOWN WOMAN: He’s nuts because women clearly haven't been running the Catholic Church. The bishops are running the Catholic Church. Don't tell me that they really are respecting women because they're not.
I’m sure that is not all that Weigel said. It’s a little cute. Bishops run the church, but in many parishes, women are the volunteering backbone of church liturgy and activities. They make many everyday decisions and make many parishes go, but male bishops and priests still reign on the altar. The feminists have not been granted power. If they were, they'd not only have womenpriests, but they'd celebrate gay marriages, abortions, and transgender surgeries. The badly disguised commercial continued:
McFADDEN: Even Pope Francis celebrated around the world for his more inclusive sense of the church has said women's ordination is off the table.
LUCEY: Even popes can be mistaken.
McFADDEN: As for Mrs. Lucey, perhaps Father Lucey? Do you think the church is capable of the kind of change that you advocate?
LUCEY: Either the church will die, or this will occur. In my lifetime, probably not. But there's always hope.
McFADDEN: For Today, Cynthia McFadden, Orlando, Florida.
NBC isn't going to acknowledge any irony, that the mainline Protestant churches that accepted feminist orthodoxy are shrinking and "dying," in feminist lingo.
The related story on NBCNews.com had more political language from the feminists, like the thought that they are Rosa Parks, and faithful Catholics are like segregationists:
"It's the Rosa Parks movement of the Catholic Church," said Bridget Mary Meehan of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. "The Vatican cannot continue to discriminate against women and blame God for it."
NBC also didn't connect the tots that Meehan attracts "30 to 100" worshipers to her services. So whose church won't last? And then Lucey compared Pope Francis to Obama and Obama to Jesus:
"Like Obama, he has to move slowly in making some of these radical decisions, but I think if he lives long enough he will be making some of these changes," said Lucey, a longtime social-justice activist. "Jesus broke many of the taboos of his time."
Online, Weigel said Catholics for Womenpriests is a little like "Republicans For Socialism."
