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Dear Blog Visitors: I am happy to report that I will be participating in the following seminar: The National Catholic Ministrial Alliance presents a day-long seminar before the Call to Action conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin November 3: “Bridging the Gap: Gender Equality, Sex and Ordination” The National Catholic Ministerial Alliance is planning a day-long pre-CTA Conference seminar with keynote speakers Anthony Padovano, Andrea Johnson and more to discuss and promote the movement for an inclusive and renewing Catholic priesthood. A panel will feature Carmen Lane, Ray Grosswirth, Tom Honoré, and Kathy Vandenberg, talking about their individual journeys as women and married men living out their call to ordination. For more information, visit the Call to Action Website at www.cta-usa.org

PRESS RELEASE August 4, 2006 8 WOMEN ORDAINED AS CATHOLIC PRIESTS HAVE NOT BEEN EXCOMMUNICATED On July 31, 2006, eight Roman Catholic women were ordained as priests in Pittsburgh. They were validly ordained by three consecrated female bishops. Whether or not U.S. bishops recognize these priests as validly ordained is not the point. What is very much to the point is the fact that bishops have incorrectly stated that the women who were ordained have excommunicated themselves from the Roman Catholic Church. Under the carefully crafted guidelines for excommunication, there needs to be a process for such action. There is no such thing as "self-excommunication,” although one could make an argument that if a person announces that he or she is leaving the Roman Catholic Church, an interpretation of self-excommunication is possible. However, in the case of the eight women ordained as priests on July 31, there were no announcements from these women that they were leaving Roman Catholici...

I put the following press release out on the wire service today, and thought I would post it to my blog as well. CORPUS MEDIA LIAISON AVAILABLE FOR TV & RADIO INTERVIEWS TO DISCUSS MARY MAGDALENECORPUS www.corpus.org Contact: Ray Grosswirth, CORPUS Media Liaison, rgrosswirth@corpus.org With the release of the movie version of 'The Da Vinci Code' on May 19, it is reasonable to assume there will be general interest in the relationship that existed between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. While very little historical data exists that supports events depicted in Dan Brown's book, he does correctly draw upon recent scholarship that clears the bad reputation Mary Magdalene was stuck with for over one-thousand years. Whether or not Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene is a matter of conjecture, since this theory cannot be proven one way or another historically. Yet, a valid argument for Jesus being married is his Biblical title of 'rabbi.' (During the first century, this title...