Mock Mass Protests Vatican’s Rules Barring Women Priests

An American nurse conducted a mock Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday “to dramatize the plight of all women who want to become priests but cannot because of the church’s discrimination.”

A Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called it an “act of stupidity” that “does not prove or enhance anything.”

Babi Burke of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., approached the Altar of the Throne of St. Peter in the rear apse with a lighted alcohol lamp and kissed the altar. She blessed herself with a sign of the cross, then spread her arms in a priestly gesture of welcome, slowly raised a wafer, consumed it and raised a silver chalice.

“Oh, she is beautiful, just beautiful! She is finally saying Mass!” shouted her colleague, Marie-Terese Sonmoy, a former nun from Belgium. On Saturday, the two women interrupted a Vatican news conference with a call on the church to end “all discrimination based on race, social class or sex.”

Guards Rush In

Burke, who is 44 and has four children, drank from the chalice Wednesday and blessed the altar before two Vatican guards rushed up and took her from the basilica to the Holy See’s security headquarters. The mock service lasted about five minutes.

Guards also took Sonmoy away. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro said both women were released later.

Security is quite relaxed in the basilica, which thousands of tourists enter every day. It is protected by traditional Swiss Guards in colorful Renaissance uniforms and the security agents in modern dress who detained the women.

“I celebrated Mass to dramatize the plight of all women who want to become priests but cannot because of the church’s discrimination,” Burke said as she was escorted from the apse.

‘A Short Prayer’

In a written statement distributed to reporters later, she described her action as “a short prayer of profession for the love of God and the church.”

“It’s a frank acknowledgment that there exists a crisis in Catholicism,” the statement said. “Vatican II declared that all discrimination based on sex, race and class be eradicated and is contrary to the will of God. Sexism is a sacrilege to the Gospel of Christ.”

She said the extraordinary synod of 165 bishops now being conducted at the Vatican does not include any women with voting rights. Pope John Paul II convened the two-week assembly, which began 10 days ago, to assess the impact of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, also called Vatican II.