A woman was ordained recently as a Catholic priest in the kind of ceremony the Vatican recently condemned as one of the church's most serious crimes.
Elaine Groppenbacher received holy orders from Bishop Peter Hickman of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, one of several liberal Catholic offshoots in the Phoenix area.
The ceremony took place at Guardian Angels Catholic Community, which meets here.
Groppenbacher is the fourth woman to be ordained as a Catholic priest in this area.
The issue of women's ordination has been the subject of debate in recent years.
The Vatican recently condemned the action as a grave sin, on par with the sexual abuse of children.
"The Catholic church teaches that only a baptized man can be validly ordained to the ministerial priesthood," said Rob DeFrancesco, spokesman for the Diocese of Phoenix.
"The Catholic priesthood mirrors the actions of Christ, who lived as a celibate male and sought to ordain only men. Therefore, the attempted ordination of a woman to the priesthood in the Catholic church constitutes a grave offense."
The ceremony also confirmed another woman priest, the Rev. Sue Ringler, and her parish as part of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion.
Participating in the ceremony were five bishops of independent churches, including Hickman, as well as the Rev. Vernon Meyer, a Catholic priest who resigned from the Phoenix diocese this month.
DeFrancesco said independent churches "are not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church and should not identify themselves as Catholic" because of potential confusion. He had no comment on Meyer's participation.
Elsewhere, the church has excommunicated the person ordained and those who took part in the ordination.
But neither Groppenbacher nor Ringler said she considered herself subject to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore could not be excommunicated.
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