Could this married feminist be the Catholic Church's first woman cardinal?

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_Abyssinia said:
Vatican dismisses reports of women cardinals
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This is good. IF the Pope ever decides to name Lay Cardinals again (male or female) I think it would be wise that he let’s the Catholics know he’s going to remove the canon law at least a few years before actually naming one. Today, we are so used to ordained Cardinals that a change in canon law would take some time to digest.

Let people get used to the possiblity before actually do it.

NOTE: while I do think it’s technically possible for female Cardinals, I’m not sure what good it would do without a number of lay (male and female) Cardinals. One token female Cardinal is useless and potentially a PR nightmare. However, somewhere between 10 & 20 lay cardinals (evenly split between male and female) might be better. Or simply appointing 5-10 nuns as Cardinals (must be a nun to be a Cardinal) if they do not want to open it up to the laity.

If this ever happens, they have make sure it’s not seen as “the token female Cardinal” PR stunt.
 
_Abyssinia said:
Vatican dismisses reports of women cardinals

I have said a few times on here that I did not think a woman could be a Cardinal, but I was wrong. But just because it is theroetically possible that a woman could be a Cardinal does not mean it will ever happen.
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Hello,

You weren’t wrong. For the sake of clarity, here’s the pertinent canon: “Can. 351 §1. The Roman Pontiff freely selects men to be promoted as cardinals, who have been ordained at least into the order of the presbyterate and are especially outstanding in doctrine, morals, piety, and prudence in action; those who are not yet bishops must receive episcopal consecration.” Only presbyters can be selected and those who are not bishops must receive episcopal consecration/ordination. So, your earlier comment is entirely correct. It reflects current law and reality: just because this law could change in the future, or be dispensed in individual cases, doesn’t make your comment wrong or even “not totally true.”

Today, the weather is sunny here. Even though tomorrow might be cloudy I can still say “It is sunny.” and I will be 100% correct. If I say “The speed limit in this state, on interstate highways, is 65.” and that is what the law is, I am right–even if the speed limit will go up to 70 tomorrow or maybe they’ll make a law saying certain people can go 85.

Anyway, back to Cardinals: yes, there is room for change but let’s not make it seem as though everything is in flux or there are no meaningful or operative limitations.

Dan
 
dans0622 said:
Hello,

You weren’t wrong. For the sake of clarity, here’s the pertinent canon: “Can. 351 §1. The Roman Pontiff freely selects men to be promoted as cardinals, who have been ordained at least into the order of the presbyterate and are especially outstanding in doctrine, morals, piety, and prudence in action; those who are not yet bishops must receive episcopal consecration.” Only presbyters can be selected and those who are not bishops must receive episcopal consecration/ordination. So, your earlier comment is entirely correct. It reflects current law and reality: just because this law could change in the future, or be dispensed in individual cases, doesn’t make your comment wrong or even “not totally true.”

Today, the weather is sunny here. Even though tomorrow might be cloudy I can still say “It is sunny.” and I will be 100% correct. If I say “The speed limit in this state, on interstate highways, is 65.” and that is what the law is, I am right–even if the speed limit will go up to 70 tomorrow or maybe they’ll make a law saying certain people can go 85.

Anyway, back to Cardinals: yes, there is room for change but let’s not make it seem as though everything is in flux or there are no meaningful or operative limitations.

Dan
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Canon law also says
o Those to be promoted cardinals are men freely selected by the pontiff, who are at least in the order of the priesthood and are truly outstanding for doctrine, virtue, piety and prudence in practical matters; those who are not already bishops must receive episcopal consecration.
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catholicregister.org/features/item/13821-responsibilities-of-the-cardinals-of-the-holy-roman-church

Canon law would have to be changed to have women as Cardinals, and would that ever happen?
 
_Abyssinia said:
Canon law would have to be changed to have women as Cardinals, and would that ever happen?
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It doesn’t have to change. As others pointed out; the Pope can dispense of canon law in certain instances and for certain individuals. So it is possible; not likely; but possible.
 
gilliam said:
It doesn’t have to change. As others pointed out; the Pope can dispense of canon law in certain instances and for certain individuals. So it is possible; not likely; but possible.
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The Pope already does this, as Francis’ predecessors freely “ballooned” the College of Cardinals beyond its prescribed limit of 120 electors. And we can see that Francis is not afraid to dispense liturgical law in the same way, such as when he washed the feet of women on Holy Thursday.
 
It’s simply the woman in question promoting herself. Even if, for sake of discussion, we say that Francis intended to redefine the office of Cardinal so that it did not require Holy Orders, would it really be a feminist European? Wouldn’t such a break be far more likely to occur by naming a long time Superior of a women’s religious order?

That, at least, would place the criteria for selecting such a woman on an equal footing to selecting men: a long history of effectively leading believers in faithful service to Christ.

But I doubt even that will happen. This paper thinks so little of Catholicism that they aren’t even willing to do the basic research necessary to concoct a plausible fiction plot.
 
Elizium23 said:
Thanks to the OP for stirring the pot of dissent again.
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Elizium, I assume you know how to use the private messaging feature in CAF – kindly rely on it the next time you feel like taking me to task for starting a thread. :rolleyes:
 
Speculation about a female cardinal was most intense in Ireland, where newspapers reported that Linda Hogan, a liberal theologian, was a likely candidate. London’s Sunday Times gave added credence to the report. But the suggestion of a red hat for Linda Hogan had not come from Vatican insiders; the story apparently had no basis other than a Facebook post by an American Jesuit, Father James Keenan, a theologian at Boston College with a history of support for liberal causes.
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catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=19572
 
To all those who think that this (women cardinals) would be such a hot idea. Why? Can’t you see how this would fuel those who already take everything this Pope says and does out of context? Feminists would rejoice and what good would this do? All this does is appease those who are already ***way ***out of touch with the Church and who continue to despise her for their wrongly held position that she “oppresses women.” It creates division. And you know who’s the father of division?..you guessed it!

Peace, Mark
 
Mark,

There may be good reasons against women cardinals, but the above aren’t among them. Worry about how people of ill will and bad faith will attempt to manipulate an event is not a valid reason to try to prevent that event from occurring.

The selection process for a pope is not a “de fide” revelation. It’s been done a variety of ways over time. It’s not clear cut like Holy Orders is (Jesus only placed men among the 12).

If God wants holy women in on the selection process of popes, it will come to be. If not it won’t. Not really in our pay grade, so why bother fussing?
 
manualman said:
Mark,

There may be good reasons against women cardinals, but the above aren’t among them. Worry about how people of ill will and bad faith will attempt to manipulate an event is not a valid reason to try to prevent that event from occurring.

The selection process for a pope is not a “de fide” revelation. It’s been done a variety of ways over time. It’s not clear cut like Holy Orders is (Jesus only placed men among the 12).

If God wants holy women in on the selection process of popes, it will come to be. If not it won’t. Not really in our pay grade, so why bother fussing?
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The point being, as Elizabeth502 has posted, this has not come from the Vatican, but rather from a priest who supports ***liberal ***causes. Those who support this are in my view, the exact same ones who support women’s ordination, so-called SSM, and a whole host of other liberal causes that are at ***complete ***odds with the Church they profess to belong to. And with the help of an all too willing *liberal *media, they’ve done a bang-up job of corrupting many more poorly catechized Catholics to their way of thinking. Various polls already bear this out. Now you may not think these are good reasons to oppose this…but I sure do. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this!

Peace, Mark
 
DaddyGirl said:
I guess we’ll see if the Pope is “satisfied with that” or not.

Also, I don’t understand why the newspaper is calling this woman a “feminist”.
They report only a few lines about her and…she seems to be someone who believes in rights and equality for both genders…not more so for women than men.

That word doesn’t make sense anymore, it’s so archaic.

.
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They are probably calling her a feminist because she does believe in the equality of men and we women. People who want to put women above men are misandrists.
 
manualman said:
It’s simply the woman in question promoting herself. Even if, for sake of discussion, we say that Francis intended to redefine the office of Cardinal so that it did not require Holy Orders, would it really be a feminist European? Wouldn’t such a break be far more likely to occur by naming a long time Superior of a women’s religious order?

That, at least, would place the criteria for selecting such a woman on an equal footing to selecting men: a long history of effectively leading believers in faithful service to Christ.

But I doubt even that will happen. This paper thinks so little of Catholicism that they aren’t even willing to do the basic research necessary to concoct a plausible fiction plot.
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I don’t think this will happen, but if it did I would hope that an academic woman learned in theology would be chosen over a longtime religious superior. (By the way, I know several faithful nuns who would describe themselves as feminists).

As it stands now cardinals are essentially priests who have worked their way up. To become priests they had to devote years of their lives to study, to understand both scripture and the traditions of the church inside and out. This is usually after they complete a 4 year degree. The woman should be able to intellectually and educationally keep pace with the rest of the cardinals and speak with them on their level. I’m skeptical that many nuns would have the background required to do so.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
I don’t think this will happen, but if it did I would hope that an academic woman learned in theology would be chosen over a longtime religious superior. (By the way, I know several faithful nuns who would describe themselves as feminists).

As it stands now cardinals are essentially priests who have worked their way up. To become priests they had to devote years of their lives to study, to understand both scripture and the traditions of the church inside and out. This is usually after they complete a 4 year degree. The woman should be able to intellectually and educationally keep pace with the rest of the cardinals and speak with them on their level. I’m skeptical that many nuns would have the background required to do so.
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You should study the formation requirements of women religious.
 
A woman cardinal would have the uninformed media and apostate Catholics thinking women’s ordination is on its way. So, no.
 
YoungTradCath said:
You should study the formation requirements of women religious.
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I’m actually very familiar with them, but I still don’t think that its quite on the same level as priests.

And it isn’t just theology. Just going through as much formal education that priests do tends to lead to very good reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. (Yes, some women religious do attend college first, but it is by no means required).

If this happens I would just hope that the female point of view would come from someone who could be considered the equal in knowledge and thought to the male cardinals. Even if her perspective is different I want it to come from someone just as educated.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
I’m actually very familiar with them, but I still don’t think that its quite on the same level as priests.

And it isn’t just theology. Just going through as much formal education that priests do tends to lead to very good reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. (Yes, some women religious do attend college first, but it is by no means required).

If this happens I would just hope that the female point of view would come from someone who could be considered the equal in knowledge and thought to the male cardinals. Even if her perspective is different I want it to come from someone just as educated.
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I would imagine that there are quite a few Mother Superiors who match your description.

Allowing a married, lay women would require allowing lay men too. IF this is ever done, it would need to be done right to avoid confusion, etc.

Also, people need to remember, what makes Cardinals public leaders in the Church isn’t their title, but the job they do (i.e. Archbishop of an important Archdiocese, leaders in the Curia, etc.). The layity rarely hears from Retired Cardinals (even those under 80).

If we have lay female (or male) Cardinals, what would their day-to-day job be?
 
Actually we see that the select few of our lord Jesus Christ included only males. That being so, it is always going in tune with the tradition and practicability to have only male priests and bishops as Cardinals. However there are many women who were having a very superior part than an apostle in the mission of Jesus Christ. The actual transformation will be whether a Cardinal will be humble enough to glorify Jesus Christ by considering a woman superior to himself in continuing the mission of Jesus Christ. The concept of authority should change, and we have to truely follow the ordained tradition found acceptance with Jesus and carry forward the revolution ushured in through Him. Emulating the world may sometimes amount to rejecting Jesus.
 
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