Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois today said that a story in The New York Times stating he has been dismissed from the Maryknoll Mission Society is incorrect.
Bourgeois has received a second canonical warning from his religious superiors stating that he must recant his support for women's ordination and cease publicly advocating for the cause or face dismissal (see NCR story).
Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, the canon lawyer representing Bourgeois, said today in a phone interview that he would be filing legal papers with the order arguing that the basis for a Vatican excommunication was illegitimate and raising other issues of substance and procedure.
Bourgeois's superiors noted in the second canonical warning that he has a right to defend himself against the warning and to seek legal redress. Bourgeois said in a phone interview today that he intended to take advantage of that right.
