I had to reread the first paragraph of the following story three times until I was sure I’d read it correctly. The Vatican believes that priests who rape little boys and ruin their lives are in the same criminal category (under church law) as are Catholic bishops who ordain women as priests and are the women who participate in ordination ceremonies. According to the Guardian:
The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism. The new rules, which have been sent to bishops around the world, apply equally to Catholic women who agree to a ceremony of ordination and to the bishop who conducts it. Both would be excommunicated. Since the Vatican does not accept that women can become priests, it does not recognize the outcome of any such ceremony.
The penalty is the ultimate one issued by the church: excommunication. Of course excommunication can be appealed but it is rarely so. It comes at a time when the Anglican Church is moving closer to the ordination of female bishops.
Oddly enough the revision which brought about an equalization of the penalties for female ordination and pederasty came while the Vatican was trying to toughen penalties for priests accused of sexually abusing young Catholics.
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