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	Italy's First Female Priest The Province May 23, 2010 http://www.theprovince.com/life/Italy+first+female+priest/3062928/story.html Italy's first woman priest was ordained on Saturday at a church in central Rome, a stone's throw from the Vatican, a fierce opponent of women entering the priesthood. Maria Vittoria Longhitano, who is 35 and married, belongs to the Italian Old Catholic Church, a small congregation that exited Roman Catholicism in the 19th century. "Catholicism -- which means universality -- is crippled without women, because one half of the world does not participate in Christ's mission," said Longhitano, who celebrates her first mass today in Milan. Bishop FritzRene Muller of the Union of Utrecht ordained her over the course of a two-hour mass at Rome's Anglican All Saints' Church in front of about a hundred people. The Vatican fiercely opposes the ordination of women.
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