AUSTRIA: The Vatican is threatening to excommunicate nine women who will be ordained Catholic priests today on a River Danube cruise boat.
The women from Austria, Germany and the US have studied theology for three years and say they are taking the step "to protest against the role of women in the male-dominated church".
"I think the time is ripe," said Ms Gisela Forster from Bavaria, one of the women to be ordained.
She asserted: "These days women are better at pastoral care than men.
"The male priest has become an odd figure and the parishes are empty and need priests."
But Austrian bishops have warned that the ordinations break Catholic Church law which will lead directly to excommunication.
Bishop Maximilian Aichern of Linz has described the ceremony as "a fundamental break with the church" and forwarded a report to the Vatican.
Bishop Joachim Meisner of Cologne called the ceremony a "charade".
"This wish by women to become priests is as absurd as a wish by men to have children," he said.
Liberal and progressive Catholic Church leaders in Austria, many of whom have spoken out in favour of women priests, have snubbed today's ceremony.
But the Austrian Lutheran Church in Vienna, where one-third of ministers are women, has defended the ordinations.
"The question of whether one is a good priest or not has nothing to do with gender," said a spokesman.
The Austrian Catholic Women's Movement (KFBÖ) has backed the move as a solution to falling vocations in Austria.
In a statement, the organisation called on bishops "not to complain but to accept courageously the role God has given women".
In the last 30 years, the annual number of priests ordained in Austria has dropped from 75 to 23 last year, making it difficult to serve the country's six million Catholics.
"We feel we have a vocation and we feel it is a matter of justice for the church," said Ms Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, another ordination candidate.
Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger is leader of the "Initiative for Equal Rights for Women in the Catholic Church".
"Half of all Christians are women and we want them to enrich the church with their service," she said. "We want to have a part in forming the church in the third millennium."
"We want to work in the tradition of French working priests, so that each of the candidates works to support herself as well as carrying out her ministry," she said.
Last week one of the group, Ms Viktoria Sperrer, a retired religion teacher, got cold feet and decided not to go ahead with the ceremony.
"Ms Sperrer has all her options open and can still decide differently," said Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger. The details of the ceremony are secret but have been given to some 250 people, who paid €100 each to witness the event. Press photographs of the event will cost €850.
Organisers defended the prices as a way of covering the costs of the ceremony. According to reports, the ceremony will be performed this morning by Bishop Ferdinand Regelsberger (68).
His status as bishop is contested by the Vatican. A recent survey suggested that some 70 per cent of Austrians were in favour of women priests in the Catholic Church.
Last November, Ms Mary Ramerman, a 43-year-old mother of three from New York was ordained a priest.
Today she leads the "Spirit of Christ" group, which has been excommunicated from the church.
