ROME (LifeSiteNews) — In direct protest of the Catholic Church’s law, the “Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests” performed an “ordination” ceremony of women and “transgender” individuals to the priesthood and diaconate on Thursday.

In a ceremony on board a boat on the River Tiber, “bishop” Bridget Mary Meehan presided over an “ordination” ceremony for members of the “Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests” (ARCWP). The ordinands comprised three women for the “priesthood” and three individuals for the diaconate – one woman and two gender-confused men who identify as women.

Loan Rocher, 68, one of the transgender individuals presenting for the diaconate, attested that the Church has been “repeating the same message for 2,000 years – women are inferior, subordinate, invisible.”

“It’s OK. We’ve waited long enough, so I’m doing it now,” stated Rocher, who wore a rainbow stole over a white alb.

Another “transgender woman” can be seen in the group photos provided by ARCWP, with the ordinands coming from the U.S., Spain and France.

Meehan – who is a “bishop” based out of Florida – presided over the ceremony. According to press reports, it last around two hours, was held in three languages, and strongly resembled a normal Mass featuring Scripture readings and Holy Communion.

The ordinands also mirrored the customary ordination procedure by lying prostrate on the floor of the boat – some lying on LGBT rainbow flags – before a laying-on of hands ceremony was held during which all present took turns laying hands on the ordinands.

It appears that two Catholic sacraments were thus simulated: ordination and the Holy Eucharist.

Canon 1379 of the Church’s Canon Law outlines the penalty of a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication on those who simulate the sacraments.

The passages with particular relevance to Thursday’s event also note that “(b)oth a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state.”

Attendance on board the boat was strictly limited to approved guests and media personnel. LifeSiteNews was originally given permission to attend but later informed there was no room.

But according to the press allowed on board, Meehan told the assembly that “for 22 years, we have worked hard to create a more inclusive, loving church where LGBTQ, divorced and remarried – everyone – is welcome at the table. No one is excluded.”

“We are ready,” she said to the sound of much applause, issuing a call for the Catholic Church to approve women’s ordination.

Issuing a statement about the ceremony, Meehan called on Pope Francis “to engage in a ‘conversation in the Spirit’ and to remove all barriers that excommunicate those who answer the Spirit’s call to ordination.”

The event is the latest in a series of RCWP “ordinations” that began on the River Danube in 2002.

RCWP argue that their ceremonies are performed “in Apostolic Succession,” since the first “bishops” of the group “were ordained by a male Roman Catholic bishop in apostolic succession and in communion with the pope.”

The bishop who performed the 2002 ceremony was Rómulo Antonio Braschi, a bishop who went into schism in the 1970s.

A number of warnings were issued by local bishops, bishops conferences and the Vatican to RCWP and Braschi before their 2002 ceremony, highlighting the penalty of excommunication if they went ahead.

After the 2002 ceremony, the Vatican officially declared all involved were excommunicated.

So far, there has been no official condemnation from the Vatican regarding Thursday’s ceremony, but with the official censure of the group still in place and Canon Law still enforcing automatic excommunication for simulating a sacrament, no additional statement is to be expected from the Vatican.

The ARCWP states that its goal is to “achieve full equality for all within the Church as a matter of justice and faithfulness to the Gospel.” They call for “a new model of inclusive priestly ministry in the church,” stating that they “stand in the prophetic tradition of holy obedience to the Spirit who calls all people to discipleship.”

“We are disobeying an unjust, man-made canon law that discriminates against women,” they argue.

The Catholic Church infallibly teaches that it is impossible to ordain women to any of the sacred orders. In his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II taught “that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

In 2018, then-prefect of the CDF Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., defended the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as bearing the mark of “infallibility,” with John Paul II having “formally confirmed and made explicit, so as to remove all doubt, that which the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium has long considered throughout history as belonging to the deposit of faith.”

The group involved in Thursday’s ceremony rejected the incurred penalty of excommunication, with Meehan stating that such a penalty would be unjust.

The ARCWP’s official description further adds that the group as a whole does not acknowledge the Catholic Church’s penal office or functions:

“We reject excommunication. No punishment can separate us from Christ or cancel our baptism. No church authority can separate us from God. This is our church and we are not leaving it. (No matter what the Vatican says or does.)”