GANANOQUE,, Ontario, July 25 (UPI) -- Nine women were ordained as Roman Catholic priests or deacons in an unsanctioned ceremony Monday on a boat in the St. Lawrence Seaway in Ontario.
"I believe it's valid even if it's against the law of the church because it is an unjust law," Regina Nicolosi of Red Wing, Minn., told the Minneapolis Tribune before she was ordained a deacon.
The ceremony was performed by two women who consider themselves bishops. They were among a group known as the Danube Seven ordained three years ago by an Argentine bishop on the Danube River and excommunicated afterwards by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XXV.
Both ordinations were arranged by a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
Marie David of Harwich, Mass., told the Boston Globe she has no fears of excommunication. David, married to a former priest, does not agree with the church's position on clerical celibacy or women's ordination.
"It's not accepted by Rome today, but that doesn't mean it will not always be accepted," David said. "The only way Rome will allow women to be ordained is we do it. It has to start someplace."
