I propose you are projecting your obsession onto Catholicism. At any rate, I can see you have an interest in standing on a soap box, which isn’t dialogue. Here to “fix” the whole of Christianity, if only those papists would get it right?
I saw no name calling. I am assuming the real arguments were too much for you. You leave one splinter to join another and believe all is hunky dory
There was no name calling. I just held a mirror up to your reasoning and it seems you didn’t like what you saw.
“Papists”? Wow – no need to get defensive or put words in my mouth. That’s not a word I would ever use. The facts speak for themselves. An all-male celibate priesthood is an objective mistake, a bad policy that should be abandoned. And I’m not out to “fix the whole of Christianity”; Christianity is taking care of itself quite nicely. 60% of American Catholics favor the ordination of women, and unless those believers leave the church, it’s unlikely that this number is going to decrease.
ah…so you believe in a “majority Rules” God.
so, if it was reported next week that 60% now believe that Jesus was not really God…would you jump on that bandwagon, too?
but there are answers. That is the cool thing about being Catholic.
They have rejected the teachings of St. Paul to have a “modern” clergy, so rejecting Christ’s divinity could also be put up for a vote.
I guess a religion tht does that would be pretty cool. Pretty soon, there would be votes to have polygamy and other stuff…
If you are a moral voluntarist that believes the good is whatever God says it is and can change, then morality truly is arbitrary from our perspective, but if the good is unchanging as God is, then it may be possible to discover a litmus test of sorts by which one is able to discern between prejudice and actual immorality. Compare a person’s race or sexual orientation, and and the actual act of homosexual sex for instance. In the case of the first two there is no action taking place; a person cannot help their race or sexual orientation and there is no action taking place that can be called moral or immoral, therefore excluding someone solely based on something they can’t help would be wrong. That being said, a person can choose whether or not to engage in a sexual act. Because there is an action taking place morality comes into play. It can be asked whether the action is good, bad, or neutral. How to determine “the good” is a big topic in itself and I will not go into it here. I believe I have demonstrated the distinction between non-moral factors and moral factors.I don’t think you can distinguish that easily between arbitrary tradition and prejudice on the one hand, and an “unchanging moral law” on the other. The “arbitrary tradition” that led first generation Christians to regard gentiles as impure and unclean was rooted in Scripture; if you weren’t circumcised, you weren’t among God’s people. The OT is quite clear on that. But the Church began, slowly, to understand that this moral law needed to be changed. And it was changed. (And by James, not Peter… but that’s another story.
This is a complete straw man. The Catholic Church does not hold that gay people are any more evil, wicked, and sinful than anyone else. I am called to see myself as the chief of sinners. Further, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not synonymous with “allow your neighbor to live as they please and don’t oppose their lifestyle.” Our opposition to evil comes from love. We oppose cancer because we love those it afflicts. Likewise we oppose immoral sexual acts because of the effect such practices have on society and the individual, and we love society and the individual.
Why exactly should they be able to express such desires? What is your moral basis?
I think it is obviously both.
It comes down to a question of necessary and accidental attributes and which category Jesus’ masculinity falls into. Would the fundamental nature of who Jesus is, God and man, be changed simply because his ethnicity and language change? Absolutely not, since he would still maintain what it is to be divine and what it is to be man. Would instead being God and woman change his nature? This depends on whether you believe a person’s sex makes them distinct from the opposite sex in ways extending beyond appearance.
I was Episcopalian for a year. Seeing women as pastors does not intimidate me or make me feel uncomfortable. I also do not deny that God can come crashing into our lives through women. The only question to ask here is whether women ought to be priests. Here is another link on the matter from C.S. Lewis:
Celibacy became the governing rule of religious because of the first great “priestly sex scandals” of the early Middle Ages–where adultery and concubinage were cultural norms and evidence of manhood and priests, being products of their culture, were tempted. Celibacy has served the Church well–but remember that it is a discipline, not a dogma. It is subject to change, though change is improbable.
Your arguments are obviously the same as any who would call us papist. Rooted in the same place.
I would think the answer is obvious. Cultural practices are not the same as gender, which is not a cultural practice but a reality of who Jesus is. So I ask again, should I be offended that God became Man? Do you think God went eenie meenie miney moe, I pick, male!
No Catholic believes only males are the vehicle of holy things. Why would you? I also recommend that you delve deeper in the doctrine of the communion of saints.
I doubt it. The Catholic Church doesn’t change because culture changes.
Most go somewhere, some even come to Salt Lake City. I saw a pair walking down my street yesterday.
As we both know, his desire was to have a male heir. And it was not, of course, a divorce; it was an annulment – and annulments were routinely granted by the Catholic Church in such circumstances, because the purpose of the marriage was to ensure the proper function of the state. In Henry’s case, however, his wife was Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the King of Spain. And Spain was a major financial backer of the Vatican at the time. So the King of Spain intervened and instructed the Pope to block the annulment. The effect was that the King of Spain now had control over the policies of the government of England. Henry rightfully saw this as an unreasonable interference in England’s internal affairs, and turned control of the English church over to English bishops, thus breaking the artificial and unnecessary subordination of the English clergy to Rome.
So you are right back to making the argument that maleness more resembles divinity than femaleness does.
As soon as you allow women to confirm and confect the eucharist, I’ll believe you. But no, they have the wrong parts.
It has many times and it will continue to do so. It was barely a century ago that the Church was thundering from the pulpits that religious liberty and secular government were crimes against God. Vatican II abolished any possible appeal to the argument that the Catholic Church doesn’t sway with the cultural winds.
Claiming that I support rape and pedophilia isn’t name-calling?
Saying I support rape and pedophilia isn’t name-calling?