AS A nearly 25-year member of Church of the Covenant, and a former member of its governing body, I wish to dissociate myself from its participation in the purported ordination of three women as priests in the Catholic Church. Although women's ordination is a long-settled issue in most Protestant churches, it is not for us to meddle in what are the internal affairs of a sister Christian denomination.
While I am sure there are those at Covenant, especially among its leadership and interim leadership, who feel that no apology is necessary, my conscience requires that I apologize to the Boston Archdiocese for this unwarranted intrusion into its clergy selection processes.
VANCE R. KOVEN
Dorchester
IN MICHAEL Paulson's article "Dissident group claims three women ordained as priests," members of Roman Catholic Womenpriests note that true bishops of the Roman Catholic Church consecrated women as bishops who carried out the ceremony on Sunday.
However, none of the women became bishops, priests, or deacons. They were no more ordained or consecrated than if the Catholic bishops had applied the words of the rite to a hammer. They are merely playing dress-up.
Everything these women want, the Episcopal Church already has, and we all know how well that group is doing.
JOHN CORCORAN
Flagstaff, Ariz.
THE CONTESTED ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood presents an interesting dilemma to the Roman Catholic hierarchy which so far has declared the participants to be neither Catholic nor priests and the ordination and subsequent service invalid. Wouldn't it be easier to simply declare the participants not women?
PAUL M. PARÉ
Ogunquit, Maine
