Excommunicated Woman Had Been Adult Religious Educator

You might recall the story about the woman, Mary F. Keldermans, who was recently informed of her excommunication by Bishop Paprocki upon her recent attempt to get ordained.

Keldermans of Springfield, Illinois attempted to be ordained a priest for “Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Inc.” in a ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Springfield on May 5, 2014.

But here’s something that didn’t get a whole lot of attention. She had taught adult religious education at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception.

It’s frightening. Now, it’s possible that her thinking became confused later and her teaching was perfectly orthodox. But maybe not. Maybe even likely not.

It does point to a problem in how we select our religious educators. I’ve spoken to many people who’ve shared horror stories about their children’s religious educators. I very recently had a conversation with a convert who was laughing about how unorthodox his religious educator was. He said he was a protestant who was more Catholic than the DRE.