Ladies, PLEASE! You're not priests, so please don't act stupid!

Stories like this make me want to weep, and also make me wonder.

I wonder why it is, for example, that Catholic ladies who throw up their religion just to be able to play at being men are always so darn—well, not old, exactly, but definitely topping the scale of the boomer age.

(My aunt is in her mid-80s. These ladies are in their late sixties. My aunt possesses a reasonable amount of common sense. These ladies are acting plain silly.)

And speaking of silly, why do "reporters" get everything so darned wrong?

Two St. Louis area women who consider themselves Catholic priests celebrated their first Mass on Saturday...

No they didn't. This was no more of a "Mass" than this Mac I'm looking at is a hamster.

Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath were ordained Nov. 11 by a bishop of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests group...

No they weren't. They were participating in a game that, as a child, I called "Let's Pretend."

Hudson and McGrath con-celebrated a late afternoon Mass on Saturday at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis.

No they didn't. They put on a play, perhaps.

McGrath said that the chapel holds 100 people but that 150 crammed inside.

Now, that's just plain idiocy. 50 extra people doesn't "cram" anything. And 150 people doesn't exactly constitute a throng.

“My guess is most were Catholics who felt alienated from their church,” McGrath said.

My guess is that most were Unitarians looking for still another path to consider on their own spiritual journeys...and most of all to "dialog" about it all, after the service. Over coffee. (Or green tea. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Green tea, I mean.)

The two women each gave a homily and offered communion to Catholics or anyone else in the church, said McGrath, 69.

They might've offered "communion" but it wasn't the Eucharist. Think "liturgical hors d'oeuvres" offered with an inclusive smile and you might be close.

Hudson, 67, said the women plan to hold a 4:30 p.m. Mass every Saturday at the church.

"Hold" a Mass? This is a giveaway. One "holds" a party. One doesn't "hold" a Mass.

“We were very well received,” Hudson said. “We feel good about it, and we plan to go on with it.”

Modesty as well as meekness. To say nothing of selflessness.

The killer quote:

“We don’t feel we have to defend ourselves,” Hudson said. “The archbishop has no authority over us because he did not ordain us.”

Neither, my ladies, did Christ. But then you already know that, don't you.

Please pray for these silly, silly women...and for those who encourage them in their folly.