The Roman Catholic priest who faces expulsion from the priesthood and
his religious order for advocating for women priests is refusing to
recant and has hired a church lawyer.
"What they're asking me to
do is lie," Roy Bourgeois said in an interview on August 9 from his home
in Columbus, Georgia. "To say I don't believe God calls women to the
priesthood as well as men—I cannot do that."
In 2008 Bourgeois
participated in a ceremony in Kentucky purporting to ordain Janice
Sevre-Duszynska as a Catholic priest. The church said it was without
effect, but that Bourgeois nonetheless incurred automatic
excommunication by participating. That means he is cut off from the
sacraments, although he remains a priest.
