Lyon, July 2 (Reuters): A married French Catholic woman was ordained a priest today, an unlawful step condemned by one of the country’s top Roman Catholic clerics.

Genevieve Beney, a 56-year-old physical education teacher with a theology degree, took her vows on a boat on the Saone river near this eastern French city before some 60 Catholic activists who support female ordination.

The ceremony drew condemnation from the Catholic church, which reserves the priesthood for men.

“This act ... does not fulfill any of the conditions required by the Catholic church, and such a ceremony unequivocally constitutes a serious act of rupture with the Catholic church,” Cardinal Philippe Barbar, archbishop of Lyon, said in a statement.