The Rev. William Hausen "has incurred an automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church" for forming an independent church and conducting a religious service last weekend, officials for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh said yesterday.

In a notice in today's issue of the Pittsburgh Catholic, the Very Rev. Lawrence A. DiNardo, vicar for canonical services, also said those joining Hausen's Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church "need to know that free and willful participation in this church implies separation from the Catholic Church" and cannot consider themselves in good standing.

That means, for example, they cannot stand as a sponsor for a christening or act as a witness to a marriage, explained the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese.

"It's not intended to be a threat. It's just the reality," he said, adding that "the door is always open" for returnees.

Hausen, reached yesterday afternoon, said he had long expected the excommunication notice. "It's a scare tactic, and it's meant to needlessly bring fear into the lives of people. I never wanted it to get like this. I'm doing this out of deep conscience."

On Sunday, Hausen presided over the first service of the Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church at the Sewickley Country Inn, which several hundred people attended. That act in itself meant Hausen was excommunicated by his own actions, diocesan officials said.

"When a person chooses to leave the Catholic Church, that person needs to be open and honest enough to declare so, rather than try to have the best of both worlds" by forming a new church but claiming to still be part of the Catholic Church, said a note accompanying today's official notification.

"In the sports world," it continued, "if a player for the Pittsburgh Steelers becomes a free agent and signs with the Cleveland Browns, he is certainly free to do so. To continue to wear a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and claim to be a Steeler is simply false advertising."

Hausen, ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1965, had been on administrative leave since October, and the diocese prohibited him from identifying himself as a priest or saying Mass in public.

The diocese transferred Hausen from St. James Church in Sewickley to Sacred Heart in Shadyside after he gave an Easter homily urging a discussion of ordaining women and married men. He also said Catholics should be "pissed off" about the church's sexual abuse scandal.

Lengwin said Hausen informed church officials at the time that he intended to form a new church.

Hausen said people have told him they're afraid to join his church for fear of angering the diocese, but he still expects his new church to survive. This past week, he said, two graduating seminarians from La Roche College told him they would like to study for the priesthood in the Christ Hope church.

"We have enough people coming in right now," he said, including those estranged because of divorce, sexual orientation or any other reason.

"We are inclusive, rather than exclusive. I welcome them all."