An activist group, hoping to pressure the Vatican into dropping its long-standing prohibition barring women from the priesthood, ordained three women on Sunday. Despite the fact that the ceremony was 1) packed with both Catholic male and female supporters and 2) held at a Protestant church near Boston, MA, in one of American’s most Catholic cities, clergymen from the Vatican and Roman Catholic Church are denouncing the entire event — saying that the women were not Catholic, their ordination was not real and all the participants have been automatically excommunicated.

The three women who were ordained, Gabriella Velardi Ward of Staten Island, NY, Gloria Carpeneto, of Baltimore, MD, and Judy Lee, of Fort Myers, FL, were vested in white chasubles and red stoles and greeted with a standing ovation as they were declared priests at the Church of the Covenant.

The fourth woman, Mary Ann McCarthy Schoettly, of Newton, NJ, was ordained as a deacon.

The ordination was performed by Dana Reynolds, a female bishop who practices in California. Reynolds was consecrated in Germany earlier this year. The ceremony was organized by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an organization that is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Terrence Donilon, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, released this statement to Boston’s Fox25 news: "Catholics who attempt to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the women who attempt to receive a sacred order, are by their own actions separating themselves from the Church. That said, the Catholic Church is prepared and eager to welcome back those who seek reconciliation."

These "underground" ordinations are not the first to happen in the United States. The Roman Catholic Womenpriests records say that, before Sunday’s event, there were a total of 27 female priests and nine female deacons. None of those ordinations have been sanctioned by the Vatican.

In May, the Vatican issued a decree against the ordination of female priests, saying that bishops who perform such acts and those women they ordain would be automatically excommunicated. In other words, they would fall from grace and no longer be considered Catholic, whether the Vatican ever found out about it or not.

However, Bridget Mary Meehan, member of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, called Sunday’s ordination "a symbol of liberation and equality for women in the Church."

Click here to read Anglican Vote to Allow Women Bishops Stirs Criticism