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US priest supporting women’s ordination detained

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Summary of story from Boston Globe, October 18, 2011

Police briefly detained an American priest at the Vatican yesterday during a protest to allow women to become ordained in the Catholic Church.

Reverend Roy Bourgeois and approximately 12 supporters marched to the Vatican holding a banner saying “Ordain Catholic Women” and chanting in support of female priests.

Witnesses report that police took away Bourgeois and two supporters in police cars after they tried to confiscate the banners, claiming that they did not have a protest permit.

The protestors stayed in custody for two hours at a Rome police station before being released without charge or arrest.

Reverend Bourgeois had arrived in Rome with supporters of female ordination including members of the Women’s Ordination Conference. They came to deliver a petition of 15,000 signatures in support of the priest.

In 2008 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered Bourgeois to recant his support for female ordination or be excommunicated.

He is facing dismissal from his Maryknoll order, in Georgia, for his continued support for female priests.

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