Most of you have heard of the recent make-believe ordination ceremony in Pittsburgh this past week. This movement "wants neither a schism nor a break from the Roman Catholic Church, but rather wants to work positively within the Church."
(It's a little late for that, girls. Your actions alone placed you on the outside looking in.)
Some of them have gone to Rome, to the Church of St Praxedis, to gaze at the mosaic depicted above, with a woman identified as "Episcopa Theodora." They would no doubt commence dancing around the goddess tree in delight, having claimed this as proof that the early church had female bishops.
In fact, the woman depicted is the widowed mother of Pope Paschal I, Bishop of Rome in the ninth century. Such a title for the mother of a bishop would have been common at the time. All of this would be verifiable as historical fact, as opposed to the hallucinations of a group of angry apostates. Dom Stephanos explains further at Me Monk. Me Meander.
During the Middle Ages, an abbess would have had the administrative powers of a bishop, including certain ceremonial trappings thereof -- the carrying of a crosier, the possession of a mitre -- much as would have a male abbot. (Brigid of Kildare and Hildebrand of Bingen are but two examples.) This did not make bishops of either abbots or abbesses.
One of the alleged ordinands was a local woman, Bridget Mary Meehan, who hosts a television show on public access cable called "Godtalk." I could do better, but I'm not as pretty.
Oh well, that's show biz.
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