Saturday, April 09, 2011

University hosts “female Catholic bishop”?

Rutgers University in Camden will host a woman theologian next week whom the university describes as a “female Catholic bishop.”

“Roman Catholic Bishop Patricia Fresen, one of only three ordained female bishops in the world,” will lecture at the university at 12:20 p.m. April 15, according to a Rutgers news release.

Fresen was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 2008, according to www.CatholicCulture.org.

“Patricia Fresen is not a Roman Catholic bishop. That would be the position of the Diocese of Camden,” said Peter Feuerherd, diocesan spokesman, on Monday when contacted about Rutgers’ symposium.

The lecture is being sponsored by Rutgers-Camden’s department of philosophy and religion and the gender and women’s studies program.

The university holds monthly symposiums at which sometimes controversial topics are discussed, said John Wall, an associate professor of religion.

A colleague of his had heard that Fresen would be in the Philadelphia area for another talk, “so we invited her,” he said. “Fortunately, she agreed to come.”