Best Response To Give Feminst On No Women Priest

[JerryZ]

Actually if you check history back in Jesus’s time many religions had women priestesses.
Greeks, Romans and the cultures around Israel all had women as priests.
Israel was counter cultural in that sense “all male priesthood”.
So that argument is easily disproven.

 

[Fets]

I think the post with the Robert Barron video is on the mark (though I haven’t watched it). The Church right now is actually pretty female dominated, believe it or not. Other than priests, most parishes are run by women. In fact, it’s actually a problem getting men involved in parishes because so many of them have such a feminine culture. There are somewhere between 12 and 10,000 Fr. Z posts on this subject.
Click on a random parish and go under ‘staff’ you should find a priest and the lay positions filled by about 90% women.

It’ss important to know God. Get to know His nature. Everything stems from that. Why is God masculine? Why is Jesus a Jew? There are so many things we know about His nature, and these details are all important. Why didn’t Jesus marry? Etc, etc. The all male priesthood is tied to these ancient mysteries, and has nothing to do with patriarchy.

If Jesus wanted female priests, they would’ve existed from the beginning. Who were the people who ran from the tomb proclaiming Jesus had risen? Two women. In our ‘outdated’ and ‘patriarchal’ Church women have a role in which they can proclaim Jesus Christ to the world. What more could you ask for?

Christianity was a boon for feminism historically. I could expand that point considerably, but look into it. Women had more rights and opportunities in Christianity than in Judaism or almost any system of the day.

 

[ShrodingersCat]

Actually I think most feminists are also against the “toxic masculinity” culture, part of which involves men not being able to be emotional in public or have feminine interests (like dancing) for fear of being seen as weak. So I would argue that feminists who also think men should be free to embody traditionally female roles (like being a Stay at home dad with the same parental leave benefits as a woman) aren’t being supremacists.

 

[ShrodingersCat]

I’m not sure this argument would work. Maybe it would. But many women would resent the suggestion that we should be on any kind of pedestal or that we have greater dignity than men.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Church right now is actually pretty female dominated, believe it or not. Other than priests, most parishes are run by women. In fact, it’s actually a problem getting men involved in parishes because so many of them have such a feminine culture. There are somewhere between 12 and 10,000 Fr. Z posts on this subject.
Click on a random parish and go under ‘staff’ you should find a priest and the lay positions filled by about 90% women.

I tend to think this is the underlying reason why God continues to facilitate the all-male priesthood. As PJH and some others said, I don’t find any of the reasons given by the Church to be particularly convincing in this day and age. However, reserving the priesthood for males encourages male engagement with the Church which seems to be very sorely needed.

People have joked before about the online prayer groups with military themes trying to appeal to men to be prayer warriors. You join the group and soon find that 80 to 90 percent of the “prayer warriors” are middle-aged to elderly ladies.

While I do see men at daily Mass, acting as catechists etc they are often equalled by or slightly outnumbered by women. When it comes to any optional prayer activity that isn’t a strict males-only group, it’s always a large number of women and a little handful of men. I have also seen a number of men who think that going to church is for women, and even that men who go to church are less “manly” in some way. If the priesthood starts admitting women as well, that’s going to lose even more male engagement.

Penny’s metaphor about the man who gets to be the chef is a bit politically incorrect in this day and age, but it’s also very true.

This to me is the real underlying reason why God is keeping the priesthood male right now . Because the men need to stay in the church, and their connection with it in general is more tenuous than the women’s connection with it in general.

 

[stpurl]

I wish people would stop thinking that “The Church is giving all these weak reasons” because The Church is doing no such thing.

Various people in the Church have raised a number of possible reasons but what the Church actually says is not a reason, but a teaching, "The Church has NO AUTHORITY to ordain women.

No authority. That means that the whole decision and all its attendant reasons, many of which we either refuse to accept or deem ‘unworthy’, is out of human hands and in God’s.

And obedience to authority is this generation’s sticking point. We are a world of little individual priests, prophets, and kings who deem ourselves popes as well.

How often do we hear the self-righteous, “Well, my god would never do X, Y, or Z and if He did, I wouldn’t serve Him?” (Hint: On these forums and elsewhere, a majority of the time).

Seldom if ever do we hear, "This is hard for me, but I accept God’s will and will strive to conform to it even though in April 2019 in the Western World it seems to contradict all that ‘our’ secular society holds as ‘truth’.

I’m a woman. Not only do I accept that any of the above ‘reasons’ are utterly sufficient if God deems them so, in the teeth of human ‘experts’, but I also accept that His ways are above ‘my ways’ and His thoughts above my thoughts, and whatever He teaches as true and just, I say “Amen”.

 

[Magnanimity]

I wish people would stop thinking that “The Church is giving all these weak reasons”

I don’t know if that is directed at my post, but I could have used better language. I only meant “accidental,” like St Thomas Aquinas uses the word. That is, it’s not the essence of a thing to be this or that, it’s accidental to it. For example, it’s not the essence of a woman to be blonde. But it is the essence of a woman to be rational. When I said “weak reasons” what I meant was Arostotle’s use of the concept of “accidental” (non-essential). Not of the essence of the thing…

" The Church has NO AUTHORITY to ordain women. No authority.

I don’t know about that. Maybe if this matter had been addressed plainly by the early church then it would be as you say. For example, if the council held at Jerusalem in the book of Acts had brought up this issue, and Sts James, Peter and Paul and the others all agreed and explicitly taught that “henceforth women shall not ever hold the offices of priest or deacon,” then maybe…

But that historical event never happened. The church seems to have gone on tradition (common practice)—this is what we’ve always done—to continue the inertia of no-women-clergy. And, as I say, these seem to be accidental reasons, not essential ones. I’m open to hearing an essential reason. I just don’t think I’ve heard one yet.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

I remember being a teen girl and on some level wishing I could be a priest. I never said it out loud. It came more from a desire to give good homilies and counsel people than any understanding of vocation. If I had pursued this line of thinking any further I definitely would not have felt worthy of consecrating the Eucharist.

I think focusing the conversation on what vocations really are might help more than focusing on why women are not priests. It would help form an understanding that the priesthood isn’t like a job where men can just do it if they want to or it interests them.

 

[PJH_74]

Actually if you check history back in Jesus’s time many religions had women priestesses.
Greeks, Romans and the cultures around Israel all had women as priests.
Israel was counter cultural in that sense “all male priesthood”.
So that argument is easily disproven.

It does not matter what other cultures did around the Jews and later Christians. Both took pride in not being a part of these cultures surrounding them. Just re-read the Passion story with particular attention to the charge leveled against Jesus in the end. The Jews emphatically refused worship Caesar and the like; which ended in the Roman invasion of Israel a few decades later. As far as the Greek culture are likely thinking of, that was in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.

Anyway, that does not negate the experiences of virtually all women at that time whom, to varying degrees, remained “owned” by their father or husband. Even the priestly women you speak of, often had virginity and beauty that qualified them for the position. That’s called objectification.

 

[Lea101]

Even the priestly women you speak of, often had virginity and beauty that qualified them for the position. That’s called objectification.

This is true.

I’m not an expert on this topic but these priestesses, from what I’ve read, were treated terribly. It wasn’t some sort of empowering thing people thought it was.

 

[dailey]

Yes exactly!! That is what I tell my daughter

 

[bassmansteiny]

The priest is acting in persona Christi. When the host is consecrated he says “This is my body” and “This is my blood.”

Jesus Christ was a man because that’s how he chose to embody himself. If anyone says the Church is sexist then they might as well accuse God of the same. He could have embodied himself a woman and chose women disciples.

This is the answer I usually give. I don’t know if it is the most helpful or effective way to explain to someone with that state of mind about the Church or if they will accept it. However it is the truth and I always believe it is best to give the truthful answer.

 

[bassmansteiny]

Another excellent answer. I have also mentioned the Church being the spouse.

Truly though I don’t think this young lady will accept it at this point. Youth can be naive and get caught up in these movements because of peer pressure and exposure. The best we can do, after telling them the truth/Church teaching, is to pray for them. As she gets older and wiser she will hopefully with her mother’s good foundation in Catholic faith, come around to see the truth. Teaching by example.

 

[Pattylt]

I have a small question… is the issue of female Preists a modern idea only? When was it first questioned? Are there ANY discussions of this issue before the modern era?
Just being curious…
Thanks!

 

[PJH_74]

Are there ANY discussions of this issue before the modern era?

In the US we were struggling even to get the vote, that was 99 years ago this year. In the US married women could not have a bank account in their name only until the 1960s. In the US until 1974 banks required single, widowed, or divorced women to have a man cosign any credit application, regardless of their income, while discounting their income as much as 50%. You know I could go on.

Allowing women to be priests, at a time when being a Priest was an especially powerful position, is a dangerous proposition in a deeply misogynistic culture. You may come up with theology to support women not being Priests, but this is the reality of the social structure that prevented it all by itself. That women begin to ask this question only in recent decades should be no surprise.

 

[Pattylt]

Oh, I agree! Look at what happened to Joan of Arc!

I was just curious if it was ever…in any way…discussed prior to modernity, even in a philosophical context? I kind of assumed not but wanted to be sure.
Thank you!

 

[PJH_74]

Oh, I agree! Look at what happened to Joan of Arc!

Sorry then if I misread your question!

 

[Pattylt]

I seem to be having that problem today so I’ll avoid posting for a bit!

 

[Magnanimity]

deeply misogynistic culture.

Two of your posts above seem to have a rather bleak view of the treatment of women prior to the 20th century in the West. Just out of curiosity, which are the deeply misogynistic cultures throughout human history? Would this be all of them prior to present day, like an historical myth of progressivism might suggest?

I wasn’t a history major in college, but I had my fair share of history courses. I don’t recall the motif of women-have-been-oppressed-by-men-since-time-immemorial. Maybe I never took the “right” history course…?

 

[PJH_74]

Maybe I never took the “right” history course…?

Simple question, prior to modern times, how many authors of that history were women? Elevation of women’s virtues or being “allowed” to do things do not count, overwhelmingly those decisions were made by men.

You cannot derail this discussion based on some limited cherry picking from distant millennia. We are talking about Church theology, which is deeply and inextricably immeshed in European history. I can bet the vast majority on this forum live in a society directly descended from or heavily influenced by European culture, specifically Western. All you have to do is look at the laws and custom’s of centuries…even decades…past to see what has been going on. You and I need to live in the world we live in and address that inequality, plus a number of others. It is not revisionism nor a “myth”, it’s all right there in front of you. If it is “progressive” to believe that the potential of a person is not wrapped up in a few body parts, but rather other attributes, so be it.