VATICAN CITY: The ordination of women as Roman Catholic priests is a "crime against the faith," the Vatican said Thursday as it issued a raft of new disciplinary rules.
Cases of "attempted ordination of women" will henceforth be handled by the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), a Vatican statement said.
The new rules put attempts at ordination of women among the "most serious crimes," along with paedophilia, updating a 2007 CDF decree according to which those who attempt to ordain women — and the women concerned — are subject to automatic excommunication.
