[2] On June 29, 2002, on a boat on the Danube River, Austria,[2] Braschi ordained seven Catholic women, called the Danube Seven, to the priesthood: Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Müller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Dagmar Braun Celeste (who called herself Angela White).
[1] The excommunicated people then published letters and granted interviews about the ordinations, explaining how it was valid, that the Catholic Church ought to allow women to be ordained, and how they had celebrated the sacraments.
[1] The response was prepared by fifteen members of the Congregation: Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger, Alfonso López Trujillo, Ignace Moussa I. Daoud, Giovanni Battista Re, Francis Arinze, Jozef Tomko, Achille Silvestrini, Jorge Medina Estévez, James Francis Stafford, Zenon Grocholewski, Walter Kasper, Crescenzio Sepe, Mario Francesco Pompedda and Bishops Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, and Rino Fisichella.
[1] The fifteen members met multiple times to discuss the matter, and ultimately came to a "collegial decision" to not revoke the excommunication.
[1] The Congregation listed their reasons for why this was the case: the excommunication was not a latae sententiae penalty, but a ferendae sententiae penalty, as per Canons 1314, 1319, and 1347; the excommunication was issued by the Pope through the Congregation, as per Canon 360; the offense was grave and evident; the women, by choosing to be ordained by a schismatic, became schismatics themselves; the women rejected the magisterium of the Pope and the teaching on ordination that he definitively proposed in Ordinatio sacerdotalis; the women, by inciting other Catholics to schism, were justly punished so as to protect the faith, communion and unity of the church and guide the consciences of the faithful; and the excommunication was intended to provoke the six persons to repentance.