On August 16, 2011, Bourgeois's canon lawyer Fr. Thomas Doyle wrote a letter to the Maryknoll Society asking that "reputable theologians" be brought in to examine the case "in order to look much more deeply" into two central issues: the Church's claim that the teaching on women's ordination is infallible, and the right of a Catholic "to act and think according to the dictates of his conscience" even if the conclusions put one in conflict with the Church's highest authorities.
