Poor journalism and ‘heresy’

I am writing to express my dismay to the article “Roman Catholic female priest answers calling” in the Sept. 17 Leader-Post. I found the article to have factual errors as well as misleading statements. First of all, the article states there are Roman Catholic female bishops and female priests. This is incorrect. Any woman who claims to be a bishop or priest in the Roman Catholic Church is, in fact, committing a heresy. Their “ordination” is not valid and is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.

The article also infers that the woman in the article was “trained but not recognized by what she calls the “institutional” or “traditional” Catholic Church.” This sounds as if she undertook training by the church, which in turn would not ordain her. Again this is incorrect. The Roman Catholic Church does not educate women to become priests. However, any Roman Catholic woman, including myself, is free to study philosophy, theology, pastoral care, and such subjects, not with the goal of ordination but for educational purposes.

Finally, I could not believe the lack of investigative journalism in this article. If I phoned up a Leader-Post reporter and told them that I was a member of the Regina Police Service (which I am not) and wanted to share my experiences, would someone come and interview me and write an article about me? Hopefully, the journalist would actually contact the RPS and have my qualifications verified. I was very disappointed that Will Chabun did not seem to have any of this woman’s claims of being a Roman Catholic priest who was “ordained” by a female Roman Catholic bishop verified. Poor journalism. Janette Rieger, Emerald Park