Explaining why women can't be priests is not anti-women

[Irishgal49]

First of all, please, I am not wanting to start any debate on why women should/should not be priests. They cannot be priests in the Catholic church.

I am looking for information and maybe looking for something that doesn’t exist? Specifically I am trying to find something that explains the reason why women cannot be priests and more importantly that the reason this is so is not anti-women or about lessening women’s roles in the church. I have a non-believing colleague that I talk with about this and I’m afraid I cannot put the reasons behind this into words eloquently enough for him to understand and hence am looking for some help.

Can anyone point me to anything that was written on this subject that might perhaps shed a better light on the topic?

Thanks and God bless.

As usual people are ignoring your comment that you didn’t want a big deal about ordination, you wanted to find a way to explain it to a non-Catholic or even a non-Christian. To a non-Catholic I would hold up our reverence for the Blessed Mother. Many Protestants see her merely as the winner of a selection process, not someone who was the mother of God. I think that it probably won’t matter but at least you can show that she is held in the highest regard (under God of course) in the Catholic faith and that women are saints, doctors of the Church, and that the Blessed Mother was the only human being who didn’t sin (Immaculate Conception). She also has days of obligation in the Church. That seems to be an elevation of women in a way Protestants don’t.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

As usual people are ignoring your comment that you didn’t want a big deal about ordination, you wanted to find a way to explain it to a non-Catholic or even a non-Christian. To a non-Catholic I would hold up our reverence for the Blessed Mother. Many Protestants see her merely as the winner of a selection process, not someone who was the mother of God. I think that it probably won’t matter but at least you can show that she is held in the highest regard (under God of course) in the Catholic faith and that women are saints, doctors of the Church, and that the Blessed Mother was the only human being who didn’t sin (Immaculate Conception). She also has days of obligation in the Church. That seems to be an elevation of women in a way Protestants don’t.

I don’t think people are ignoring it, but I also don’t believe that explaining that the Church has no authority to ordain women is somehow beyond the grasp of understanding for a non-Catholic or non-Christian.

I do think that if one chose to highlight Mary, for example, as an elevation of women (which is true), you’re going to have those non-Catholic/Christians come back with either, “so WHAT, that’s ONE woman out of billions”, or “so WHAT, she’s God’s mother, no other woman gets to have that either”. . .

whereas, "the Church has no authority to ordain women" should, even if it has to be broken down word by word, make it clear that this is not something that we as Catholics **could change, even if we wanted to, because this teaching comes from GOD. Not men (or women) but GOD.

**Now if these are nonCatholic Christians, they should have a pretty high respect for submission to God, and for following the Holy Spirit --both of which this teaching requires.

If they are Muslims, they can certainly understand submission to God’s teaching.

If they are Jews, likewise.

If they are anything else, from pagan to Buddhist to atheist, they can certainly understand if not a respect for GOD, a respect for one’s conscience. If we as Catholic Christians believe this teaching to be from God, and we hold it as something which in conscience we cannot reject, they might **disagree with our conclusion, **but they cannot fault us for following our conscience, since they themselves in their own personal beliefs or ‘life-experiences’ do exactly the same thing, and demand the same kind of ‘mutual respect’ from US.

 

[philv]

The role of the priesthood was established by our Lord Jesus Christ. America wasn’t around at that time, and each culture develops its own ideals, but that doesn’t mean to change the rules of a church that came prior - just so it fits the person’s cultural ideals (the existing culture is only temporarily). Due to practicing a culture’s idealism, such as equality, these questions fall into cultural centrism; it’s not a source to understand things spiritual. As Catholics, we’re Christ-centric, rather than cultural-centric, which is an ongoing spiritual government by Christ and His Church that sits on top of any modern earthly government.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. - Isaiah 55:8

 

[onenow1]

Hi all,

Jesus did not change O.T. commands from the Father, not one dot will be changed just as Jesus said. God chose men as priests not women.He did however chose the most perfect woman in the world Mary, elevated way beyond the priesthood of mortal man. Jesus the divine Priest ,Prophet and King; appointed the apostles all men doing the Fathers will. It is a shame some have a problem with God’s will.

God Bless
onenow1

 

[janeway529]

To add to what’s been said, I found this interesting bit in the book ‘Salt of the Earth,’ one in a series of books that Cardinal Ratzinger had with Peter Seewald.

But I would now add a further piece of information that I find very interesting. I am referring to the diagnosis that one of the most important Catholic feminists, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, has given in this matter. She is a German, an important exegete, who studied exegesis in Munster, where she married an Italian-American from Fiorenza, and who now teaches in America. At first she took a vehement part in the struggle for women’s ordination, but now she says that that was a wrong goal. The experience with female priests in the Anglican Church has, she says, led to the realization that “ordination is not a solution; it isn’t what we wanted.” She also explains why. She says, “ordination is subordination, and that’s exactly what we don’t want.” And on this point her diagnosis is completely correct.

To enter into an ordo always also means to enter into a relationship of subordination. But in our liberation movement, says Schussler-Fiorenza, we don’t want to enter into an ordo, into a subordo, a “subordination”, but to overcome the very phenomenon itself. Our struggle, she says, therefore mustn’t aim at women’s ordination; that is precisely the wrong thing to do. Rather, it must aim at the cessation of ordination altogether and at making the Church a society of equals in which there is only a “shifting leadership”. Given the motivations behind the struggle for women’s ordination, which does in fact aim at powersharing and liberation from subordination, she has seen that correctly. But then one must really say there is a whole question behind this: What is the priesthood actually? Does the sacrament exist, or should there be only a shifting leadership in which no one is allowed permanent access to “power”? I think that in this sense perhaps the discussion will also change in the near future.

insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2010/12/joseph-cardinal-ratzinger-on-womens-ordination.html