Vatican excommunicates local woman priest; Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas warns against affiliation

TOLEDO — The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has decreed the excommunication of a local woman ordained as a Roman Catholic Woman Priest, Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas announced in a letter warning Catholics not to be "led astray" by the Rev. Bev Bingle. Rev. Bingle received ordination as a deacon in September, 2012, and as a priest in February, 2013, under Roman Catholic Women Priests. The movement exists outside the Roman Catholic Church, which does not recognize the ordination of women; its members hold that they are ordained under the same apostolic succession as the church's recognized male priests, meaning that they are validly but not licitly ordained under the Roman Catholic Church. Women are excommunicated — latae sententiae — or automatically, upon attempting ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. So the Vatican's decree regarding Rev. Bingle comes as an affirmation of what the local diocese has held her status to be for years. Bishop Thomas indicates in his letter, which was dated Tuesday, that the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith issued its decree in December. He received it on April 20. Excommunication means that a person cannot partake in Holy Eucharist or other acts of public worship; it's a penalty "meant to help the offender realize the gravity of his or her actions and seek to repent, and to bring the person back into the fold and be restored to full communion with the Church," as Bishop Thomas explained in his letter. Rev. Bingle said she sees the announcement as "kind of an empty threat" on Wednesday. It's not the first time she has been formally or publicly informed of her status, she said, and she has known since her ordination that she is not welcome to receive sacraments in a parish under the hierarchy of the Diocese of Toledo. She firmly retains her identity as a Roman Catholic. "They can't burn me at the stake, they can't put me on a rack and make me recant," she said. "None of the kinds of things that happened in the history of church are going to happen." Rev. Bingle set up Holy Spirit Catholic Community in Toledo in 2013, and she has since pastored a modest congregation there. She estimated that 20 people worship with her each weekend. Among her congregants are others who are or would also be formally excommunicated based on their marital status; the faith tradition also forbids same-sex marriage and remarriage without annulments. "This is a Roman Catholic Church," she said of Holy Spirit. "And I suspect that given time, we will eventually be seen as doing what we should have done, which is break an unjust rule. "And not just unjust against women who have a call to the priesthood," she continued, "but unjust to all the people who are excommunicated for not following one of those rules." In his letter to the Diocese of Toledo, Bishop Thomas cast the issue of the local woman priest as a "most serious matter which has pastoral and spiritual implications." He recounts his own efforts and those of his predecessor, Bishop Leonard Blair, to meet with Rev. Bingle so that she might renounce her "attempted ordinations" and reconcile with the church hierarchy; he continues to describes her public role as a priest as a "cause of great concern, and a source of confusion and scandal to the faithful of the Diocese of Toledo." Bishop Daniel Thomas warned Catholics of the Diocese of Toledo against any affiliation with Holy Spirit Catholic Community or with the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests; Rev. Bingle presented herself as a representative of a local chapter of the latter's social justice subcommittee on a permit to hold an event on county grounds last year, as the bishop notes in his letter. "In your charity, please join me in earnestly praying for Ms. Beverly Bingle that she may renounce her attempted ordinations and continued simulation of the Sacrament and be reconciled with the Catholic Church," he concludes. "Please also pray for anyone who has been affected or scandalized by her actions that they may not be led astray, but may embrace anew the perpetual teachings and practice of Christ's Church." ——— ©2020 The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) Visit The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) at www.toledoblade.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.