A court in Finland has rejected an appeal from a priest who was handed down a disciplinary order because he refused to conduct worship together with a female priest.The priest, Jari Rankine, was chaplain in a parish in Vammala in western Finland, but he refused to take part in two religious services because of the presence of a female priest.
In response, the archdiocese blocked him from serving for three months and forbade him to exercise his ministry.
But the Administrative Court referred Jari Rankine to Finnish church rules, writing that there should be room in the church for different views on women priests.
That did not mean he was free to refuse to serve as a priest at those two services, they said and upheld the priest’s injunction. The decision can be appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court.
However, the priest has now left to join the Finnish Lutheran church which does not allow women priests.
On Oct 7, the Turku cathedral chapter informed the pastor of Vammala, the Rev Markus Malmivaara that his license to officiate as a minister of the Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church had been suspended for 90 days by Archbishop Jukka Paarma for contumacy.
Mr Malmivaara had refused to celebrate the sacraments alongside women clergy.
His claim to be acting out of conscience and theological principle was not held to be grounds for disobedience.
In September 2006 a committee of the Finnish House of Bishops chaired by the Bishop of Espoo, the Rt Rev Mikko Heikka recommended that congregations no longer be permitted to allow ministers to absent themselves from services where they would have to serve with a female priest, nor would the parish be permitted to accommodate traditionalist clergy by scheduling male clergy only services.
The committee recommendations prompted protests from Finnish traditionalists, who mounted a petition drive that attracted approximately 100 signatures objecting to the new rules.
However, the House of Bishops adopted the new rules, saying they would provide pastoral support and guidance to traditionalists.
Male clergy could not refuse to con-celebrate the sacraments with women clergy, but were granted the right to decline to receive Eucharistic elements consecrated by a female priest.
When the Church of Finland authorized women priests in 1986 it also declared that “those members and officials of the church who take a negative view of opening the ministry to women, shall continue to have freedom to operate in our church and a possibility to be ordained and appointed to different posts in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: RI)