French woman ordains herself

Yes, you read that correctly, woman ordains self. It looks like an Onion headline, but it is not. Rather powerful of her, I thought, being able to make oneself a Catholic priest. I thinking about ordaining myself all kinds of things, a housecat perhaps or an owl. Maybe I'll ordain today National Gin and Tonic Day. I am powerful that way too, you know. The whole thing gives new meaning to word "individualism," no?

And her "reasoning" for this is rather funny: "This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church," Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat. "If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and unjust to women."

I figured "I" would come in there somewhere. The "I"s always know better than immemorial institutions, don't they?

And then: "We consider ourselves Catholic," Beney told AP in an earlier interview. "But we do not agree with the church law ... that says only a baptized male can be ordained as a priest."

Yes. Well. I consider myself a bird, so let's see if I can fly. Can you be a part of something yet oppose what that something stands for? Let's have some fun with this:

"I consider myself a Girl Scout ... despite the fact that I am a 78 year old man."
"I consider myself a member of the Red Sox ... even though I cannot play and am not a member of the team."
"I consider myself a student at your university ... even though you rejected my application and have barred me from campus ... I'll be holding classes off campus and will give myself your degree in four years."

Rome hardly blinked and excommunicated the lot. [Yawn] What is it that Evelyn Waugh wrote (perhaps the central meaning of the text) in Brideshead?

Sayeth Julia: "...I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable -- like things in the schoolroom, so bad they are unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with -- the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's."